Abstract
BackgroundSeveral chronic pain populations have demonstrated decreased conditioned pain modulation (CPM). However there is still a need to investigate the stability of CPM paradigms before the measure can be recommended for implementation. The purpose of the present study was to assess whether shoulder pain intensity and gender influence CPM stability within and between sessions.MethodsThis study examined two different musculoskeletal pain models, clinical shoulder pain and an experimental model of shoulder pain induced with eccentric exercise in healthy participants. Patients in the clinical cohort (N = 134) were tested before surgery and reassessed 3 months post-surgery. The healthy cohort (N = 190) was examined before inducing pain at the shoulder, and 48 and 96 hours later.ResultsOur results provide evidence that 1) stability of inhibition is not related to changes in pain intensity, and 2) there are sex differences for CPM stability within and between days.ConclusionsFluctuation of pain intensity did not significantly influence CPM stability. Overall, the more stable situations for CPM were females from the clinical cohort and males from the healthy cohort.
Highlights
Several chronic pain populations have demonstrated decreased conditioned pain modulation (CPM)
Since the evidence shows a dysfunction of endogenous analgesia system among chronic pain groups [12], it is reasonable to think that Conditioned pain modulation (CPM) reliability could be affected by having the system already engaged with the presence of shoulder pain
The present study investigated whether gender and pain intensity influence CPM stability in two different musculoskeletal pain models
Summary
Several chronic pain populations have demonstrated decreased conditioned pain modulation (CPM). One investigation that examined the test retest reliability of CPM in a small sample of healthy subjects found high reliability among repeated testing within a single session [11], the exploration of CPM reliability in different musculoskeletal pain models has not yet been described. This is an important issue which would have implications for use of this measure in clinical populations. Since sex differences in pain related responses to experimental pain measures have been reported [13,14], the effect of sex on reliability of CPM has clinical implications
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