The journal of pain : official journal of the American Pain Society
-
Chronic low back pain (cLBP) remains a major health crisis worldwide. Current conceptualizations of cLBP utilize the biopsychosocial model, yet research on social factors remains limited. Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are a risk factor for a variety of chronic health problems, including cLBP. ⋯ People from disadvantaged backgrounds may experience numerous psychosocial stressors that hinder CPM, making it difficult to assess the specific impact of ACEs on CPM. TRIAL REGISTRATION: This study utilized baseline data collected as part of a parent trial titled "Examining Racial and SocioEconomic Disparities in Chronic Low Back Pain" (ERASED - ClinicalTrials.gov ID: NCT03338192). PERSPECTIVE: This study demonstrates that early life adversity is associated with abnormal endogenous pain modulation, particularly for participants who live in neighborhoods characterized by less deprivation.
-
Personality disorders (PDs) are prevalent among individuals with chronic pain, but less is known about the prevalence of pain in the PD population. This study therefore sought to explore the prevalence of current or everyday pain among individuals referred to outpatient PD treatment, and further explore the mediating role of negative affect in the relationship between PD severity and current pain. Data was retrieved from the Norwegian Network for PDs' quality register which included 4361 participants. ⋯ The findings reveal that moderate to extreme pain is prevalent among persons with PDs and that this co-occurrence is driven by negative affect. PERSPECTIVE: Pain is a prevalent and potentially underrecognized symptom in personality disorders and persists until treatment termination for a large group of patients. This co-occurrence may be driven by a susceptibility to negative affect that is enhanced by personality disorder features.
-
It is clear that implicit motor imagery (IMI) is impaired by chronic pain in peripheral regions (hand, feet), but unclear in axial regions (neck, shoulder, back). Previous IMI tasks displayed small-amplitude movements of axial regions, which limits person-centered IMI processes mobilization. This study aimed to assess the impact of chronic low back pain (CLBP) on IMI processes with a new task displaying large-amplitude whole-body movements mobilizing the lumbar spine. ⋯ The laterality judgment task proposed here confirmed that CLBP impacts IMI processes, and that the nature of pain (neuropathic or mechanical) needs to be considered because it seems to modulate IMI processes. PERSPECTIVE: A laterality judgment task with large-amplitude lumbar movements is key to show that CLBP alters processing speed of sensorimotor information originating from the painful region. This task could become an objective tool, transferable in clinical settings, for assessing the impact and the progression of CLBP on motor control processes.
-
Interventions aimed at preventing chronic pain after acute traumatic injury have significant potential to reduce healthcare expenditures and improve quality of life for millions of individuals. Given recent development of such interventions, limited research has examined mechanisms of change using repeated measures (e.g., session-by-session assessments). This study examines within-person relationships between pain catastrophizing and intensity during and after a four-session mind-body intervention for individuals with acute traumatic orthopedic injury (N = 76, T = 445). ⋯ PERSPECTIVE: This study examines within-person relationships between pain catastrophizing and intensity during and after a four-session mind-body intervention to prevent persistent pain after acute traumatic orthopedic injury. Improved catastrophizing at post-test was associated with reduced pain with activity at three-month follow-up. Within-person analyses enhance understanding of psychosocial mechanisms for preventing chronic pain after injury.
-
Recent studies comparing behavior to different sets of facial stimuli have highlighted a need to employ more naturalistic, genuine facial expressions in cognitive research. To address this need, we identified and selected a large set of highly expressive face stimuli from the public domain, and used these stimuli to test whether participants can recognise when others are experiencing pain from their facial behaviour. After identifying 315 expressive faces to represent the kinds of facial behaviours often seen in three distinct contexts (i.e., injury-related, loss-related and victory-related), we ran six behavioural ratings tasks to characterise these faces along six dimensions; level of arousal, emotional valence, level of physical pain, attractiveness, familiarity, and perceived gender. ⋯ PERSPECTIVE: Here we created and validated a large set of visual stimuli, which have been made available to the scientific community. Our results demonstrate that among high-arousal states, expressions related to feelings of intense pain and injury are visually distinct from expressions related to loss or triumph. Thus, the Wild Faces Database - High Arousal States (WFD-HAS) extension provides an important tool for understanding how we recognise injury-related facial expressions in the real world.