Inter-individual responses to experimental muscle pain: baseline anxiety ratings and attitudes to pain do not determine the direction of the sympathetic response to tonic muscle pain in humans

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Inter-individual responses to experimental muscle pain: baseline anxiety ratings and attitudes to pain do not determine the direction of the sympathetic response to tonic muscle pain in humans Sophie Kobuch1*, Rachael Brown1, Azharuddin Fazalbhoy2 and Vaughan G. Macefield1 1 Western Sydney University, Medicine, Australia 2 Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia Sustained experimental muscle pain has been shown to bring about inter-individual differences in the cardiovascular responses, which are consistent over time (Fazalbhoy et al., 2012, 2014). Intramuscular infusion of hypertonic saline, causing pain lasting ~60 minutes results in a sustained increase in muscle sympathetic nerve activity (MSNA), blood pressure, and heart rate in certain people, while evoking a decrease in these parameters in others (Fazalbhoy et al., 2012). What brings about this divergence is unknown. Here we aimed to identify whether anxiety levels and attitudes to pain could be responsible for these divergent responses. Psychological parameters were assessed prior to the induction of pain using the State and Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), Pain Vigilance and Awareness Questionnaire (PVAQ), Pain Catastrophising Scale (PCS), and Pain Anxiety Symptoms Scale (PASS). PCS was also evaluated for the pain pertaining to the experiment. MSNA was recorded from the common peroneal nerve, during a 45-minute intramuscular infusion of hypertonic saline solution in the tibialis anterior of 68 awake human subjects. Fourty-one subjects showed an increase in MSNA amplitude, while 27 showed a decrease. Neither of the measured psychological parameters showed significant differences between the increasing and the decreasing groups. These results suggest that our measured psychological levels do not influence the direction of the sympathetic response to long-lasting experimental muscle pain in healthy human subjects. References Fazalbhoy, A., Birznieks, I., & Macefield, V. G. (2012). Individual differences in the cardiovascular responses to tonic muscle pain: parallel increases or decreases in muscle sympathetic nerve activity, blood pressure and heart rate. Experimental Physiology, 97, 1084–1092. Fazalbhoy, A., Birznieks, I., & Macefield, V. G. (2014). Consistent interindividual increases or decreases in muscle sympathetic nerve activity during experimental muscle pain. Experimental Brain Research, 232(4), 1309-13015; doi: 10.1007/s00221-014-3847-7. Keywords: Muscle pain, Anxiety, Pain vigilance, Pain catastrophising, Pain anxiety, muscle sympathetic nerve activity Conference: ASP2015 - 25th Annual Conference of the Australasian Society for Psychophysiology, Sydney, Australia, 2 Dec - 4 Dec, 2015. Presentation Type: Oral Presentation Topic: Psychophysiology Citation: Kobuch S, Brown R, Fazalbhoy A and Macefield VG (2015). Inter-individual responses to experimental muscle pain: baseline anxiety ratings and attitudes to pain do not determine the direction of the sympathetic response to tonic muscle pain in humans. Conference Abstract: ASP2015 - 25th Annual Conference of the Australasian Society for Psychophysiology. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2015.219.00050 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 24 Oct 2015; Published Online: 30 Nov 2015. * Correspondence: Miss. Sophie Kobuch, Western Sydney University, Medicine, Penrith, NSW, 2751, Australia, kobuchso@gmail.com Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Sophie Kobuch Rachael Brown Azharuddin Fazalbhoy Vaughan G Macefield Google Sophie Kobuch Rachael Brown Azharuddin Fazalbhoy Vaughan G Macefield Google Scholar Sophie Kobuch Rachael Brown Azharuddin Fazalbhoy Vaughan G Macefield PubMed Sophie Kobuch Rachael Brown Azharuddin Fazalbhoy Vaughan G Macefield Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.