Background & Aims
Chronic pain is a complex phenomenon that varies widely among individuals with similar conditions. While chronic pain has effectively been identified as secondary to other medical conditions, understanding what separates individuals with higher or lower pain severity still poses a challenge. This study strives for identifying the key dimensions that influence pain severity. The aim of this study is to find out whether questionnaires evaluating different psychosocial and psychophysical factors can be predictors for the electrical stimulation threshold in healthy people as incremental step in the development of predictive pain models.
Methods
Throughout four randomized controlled trials (RCTs) patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) have been collected during screening (145 subjects) and one visit day (115 subjects). During the visit day, high frequency stimulation (HFS) was applied to subjects to induce central sensitization as a model of chronic pain. The intensity of the high frequency stimulation was directly correlated to the individual electrical threshold of each subject. Factorial analysis on PROMs capturing psychosocial, psychophysical dimensions and pain sensitivity of subjects was performed. Successively, estimated structural models were run.
Results
This study performs a meta-analysis on shared endpoints of the four BioPain RCTs facilitated through their common study protocol structure. (Leone et al., 2022; Mouraux et al., 2021; Nochi et al., 2022). The factorial analysis, performed on full screening and first study visit PROMs (n = 115), suggests two latent variables that predict individual pain sensitivity: a) anxiety/depression/catastrophizing, b) self-efficacy/general-health.
Estimated structural equation models (SEM) further showed the influence of the factors anxiety/ depression / catastrophizing and negative state emotions on HFS intensities as proxy in pain sensitivity models.
Conclusions
Psychosocial dimensions as anxiety/depression/catastrophizing, general health/self-efficacy and negative state emotions influence the sensitivity to electrical stimuli.
References
Leone, C., Di Stefano, G., Di Pietro, G., Bloms-Funke, P., Boesl, I., Caspani, O., Chapman, S. C., Finnerup, N. B., Garcia-Larrea, L., Li, T., Goetz, M., Mouraux, A., Pelz, B., Pogatzki-Zahn, E., Schilder, A., Schnetter, E., Schubart, K., Tracey, I., Troconiz, I. F., … Treede, R. D. (2022). IMI2-PainCare-BioPain-RCT2 protocol: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover, multicenter trial in healthy subjects to investigate the effects of lacosamide, pregabalin, and tapentadol on biomarkers of pain processing observed by non-invasive neurophysiological measurements of human spinal cord and brainstem activity. Trials, 23(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/S13063-022-06431-5
Mouraux, A., Bloms-Funke, P., Boesl, I., Caspani, O., Chapman, S. C., Di Stefano, G., Finnerup, N. B., Garcia-Larrea, L., Goetz, M., Kostenko, A., Pelz, B., Pogatzki-Zahn, E., Schubart, K., Stouffs, A., Truini, A., Tracey, I., Troconiz, I. F., Van Niel, J., Vela, J. M., … Treede, R. D. (2021). IMI2-PainCare-BioPain-RCT3: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover, multi-center trial in healthy subjects to investigate the effects of lacosamide, pregabalin, and tapentadol on biomarkers of pain processing observed by electroencephalography (EEG). Trials, 22(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/S13063-021-05272-Y
Nochi, Z., Pia, H., Bloms-Funke, P., Boesl, I., Caspani, O., Chapman, S. C., Fardo, F., Genser, B., Goetz, M., Kostenko, A. V., Leone, C., Li, T., Mouraux, A., Pelz, B., Pogatzki-Zahn, E., Schilder, A., Schnetter, E., Schubart, K., Stouffs, A., … Treede, R. D. (2022). IMI2-PainCare-BioPain-RCT1: study protocol for a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover, multi-center trial in healthy subjects to investigate the effects of lacosamide, pregabalin, and tapentadol on biomarkers of pain processing observed by peripheral nerve excitability testing (NET). Trials, 23(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/S13063-022-06087-1
Presenting Author
Niko Möller-Grell
Poster Authors
Niko Möller-Grell
Heidelberg University
Lead Author
Niko Möller-Grell
Heidelberg University
Lead Author
Ombretta Caspani
Dr.
Mannheim Center for Translational Neuroscience, Heidelberg University
Lead Author
Bernd Genser
Dr.
Heidelberg University
Lead Author
Jan Vollert
Pain Research, Department of Surgery and Cancer, Imperial College London
Lead Author
Nanna Finnerup
The Danish Pain Research Center - Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University
Lead Author
Zahra Nochi
Danish Pain Research Center, Aarhus University, Denmark
Lead Author
Hatice Tankisi
MD
Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University and Department of Clinical Neurophysiology, Aarhu
Lead Author
Andrea Truini
University Sapienza
Lead Author
Caterina Leone
MD
Department of Human Neuroscience, Sapienza University
Lead Author
André Mouraux
Institute of Neuroscience (IoNS), UCLouvain
Lead Author
Lieve Filbrich
Institute of Neuroscience (IoNS), UCLouvain
Lead Author
Louisien Lebrun
Institute of Neuroscience (IoNS), UCLouvain
Lead Author
Vishvarani Wanigasekera
MRCP
Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, FMRIB Centre, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosci
Lead Author
Sophie Clarke
Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, FMRIB Centre, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosci
Lead Author
Irene Tracey
MA (Oxon)
Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, FMRIB Centre, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosci
Lead Author
Luis Garcia-Larrea
INSERM U1028 / CRNL
Lead Author
Rolf-Detlef Treede
Heidelberg University
Lead Author
Topics
- Mechanisms: Psychosocial and Biopsychosocial