European journal of pain : EJP
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Review Meta Analysis
Exercise for the prevention of low back and pelvic girdle pain in pregnancy: A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.
The effect of exercise in prevention of low back and pelvic girdle pain during pregnancy is uncertain. This study aimed to assess the effect of exercise on low back pain, pelvic girdle pain and associated sick leave. ⋯ Exercise has a small protective effect against low back pain during pregnancy.
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Neuronal nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) are ligand-gated ion channels. The α4β2 subtype of nAChRs plays an important role in the mediation of pain and several nicotine-evoked responses. Agonists and partial agonists of α4β2 nAChRs show efficacy in animal pain models. In addition, the antinociceptive properties of nicotine, a non-selective nAChR agonist with a high affinity for α4β2 nAChRs, is well-known. There is a growing body of evidence pointing to allosteric modulation of nAChRs as an alternative treatment strategy in experimental pain. Desformylflustrabromine (dFBr) is a positive allosteric modulator (PAM) at α4β2 nAChRs that enhances agonist responses without activating receptors. We hypothesized that dFBr may enhance nicotine-induced antinociception. ⋯ α4β2 nAChRs are involved in pain modulation. dFBr, a PAM at α4β2 nAChRs, potentiates the nicotine response dose-dependently in neuropathic pain. Thus, the present results suggest that allosteric modulation of α4β2* nAChR may provide new strategies in chronic neuropathic pain.
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The objective of this study was to estimate the association between sleep quality (SQ) and improvements in low back pain (LBP) and disability, among patients treated for LBP in routine practice. ⋯ In clinical practice, sleep quality, low back pain and disability are associated. However, sleep quality at baseline does not predict improvement in pain and disability.
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Offset Analgesia (OA) can be evoked by a three-heat-stimulus train (T1-T2-T3), with T1 (5 s) and T3 (20 s) having the same temperature (e.g. 48 °C) and T2 (5 s) being slightly higher (1-3 °C). OA is defined as a disproportional pain reduction caused by the slight temperature decrease from T2 to T3. As the pain modulatory mechanisms behind OA are still poorly understood, the current study aimed to investigate the role of peripheral and central mechanisms by applying heat stimuli to the same location and to different unilateral and bilateral locations. ⋯ This study investigated offset analgesia by applying thermal painful stimuli to the ipsi- and bilateral forearms in healthy subjects and found that both peripheral and central mechanisms seem to mediate offset analgesia.
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Neuroimmune interactions play a vital role in many of the most common pain conditions, such as arthritis. There have been many attempts to derive clinically predictive information from an individual's inflammatory response in order to gauge subsequent pain perception. ⋯ A simple model of UVB inflammation in the skin might predict the degree of a patient's neuro-immune response and the extent of their postoperative pain after total knee arthroplasty.