title: Sleep deprivation in chronic somatoform pain-effects on mood and pain regulation.
abstract: Sleep deprivation was found to exert complex effects on affective dimensions and modalities of pain perception both in healthy volunteers and patients with major depression. Considering multifaceted links between mood and pain regulation in patients with chronic somatoform pain, it is intriguing to study sleep deprivation effects for the first time in this group of patients. Twenty patients with a somatoform pain disorder according to ICD-10 diagnostic criteria were sleep-deprived for one night, followed by one recovery night. Clinical pain complaints (visual analog scale), detection- and pain thresholds (temperature and pressure) as well as mood states (Profile of Mood States) were assessed on the day prior to the experiment, on the day after sleep deprivation and on the day after recovery sleep. We found a discrepancy between significantly increased clinical pain complaints and unaltered experimental pain perception after sleep deprivation. Only the clinical pain complaints, but not the experimental pain thresholds were correlated with tiredness-associated symptoms. Total mood disturbances decreased and feelings of depression and anger improved significantly after sleep deprivation. However, these changes were not correlated with a change in clinical pain perception. We conclude that sleep deprivation may generally change the reagibility of the limbic system, but mood processing and pain processing may be affected in an opposite way reflecting neurobiological differences between emotional regulation and interoceptive pain processing.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Regensburg, Germany. Volker.busch@medbo.de
authors.forename: Volker
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Busch
authors.forename: Joachim
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Haas
authors.forename: Tatjana
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Crönlein
authors.forename: Christoph
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Pieh
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Geisler
authors.forename: Göran
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Hajak
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Eichhammer
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D059350:Chronic Pain / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D019964:Mood Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology*; D010147:Pain Measurement; D058748:Pain Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D017288:Pain Threshold / Q000502:physiology*; D010812:Physical Stimulation; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D012892:Sleep Deprivation; D013001:Somatoform Disorders / Q000150:complications* / Q000453:epidemiology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires