title: Affective pain modulation in fibromyalgia, somatoform pain disorder, back pain, and healthy controls.
abstract: Previous research suggested that patients with fibromyalgia (FM) experience a higher pain intensity (clinical pain) than do patients with musculoskeletal pain after negative emotional priming compared to positive priming. To further examine affective pain modulation in FM, we applied an experimental pain induction to compare 30 patients with FM with 30 healthy (pain-free) participants (HC), and 30 patients with back pain (BP). For another group of 30 patients with somatoform pain disorder (SF), we predicted the same pain modulation as for FM. As primes we presented positive, neutral, negative, and pain-related pictures and assessed pain intensity in response to a fixed pressure weight. Overall, picture valence modulated pain intensities (in the order of pain-related > negative pictures > neutral), but the pain intensities between neutral and positive pictures did not differ significantly. SF reported significantly higher pain intensities than did BP and HC; FM were in between, but did not differ significantly from the three other groups. There was no interaction of priming and group. Affective modulation of pain was not specifically altered in FM and SF, but SF were more sensitive to pressure pain than BP and HC.
authors.affiliation: Klinikum Bad Bocklet, Frankenstrasse 36, 97708 Bad Bocklet.
authors.forename: Bettina S
authors.initials: BS
authors.lastname: Arnold
authors.forename: Georg W
authors.initials: GW
authors.lastname: Alpers
authors.forename: Holger
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Süss
authors.forename: Eckart
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Friedel
authors.forename: Gregor
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Kosmützky
authors.forename: Antje
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Geier
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Pauli
mesh_terms: D000339:Affect / Q000502:physiology*; D000786:Anger; D001143:Arousal; D001416:Back Pain / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*; D002908:Chronic Disease; D015897:Comorbidity; D003863:Depression / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D005239:Fear; D005260:Female; D005356:Fibromyalgia / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*; D006240:Happiness; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010146:Pain / Q000209:etiology / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*; D010147:Pain Measurement; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011312:Pressure / Q000009:adverse effects*; D011581:Psychological Tests; D013001:Somatoform Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*