Central projection of pain arising from delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) in human subjects.
Delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) is a subacute pain state arising 24-48 hours after a bout of unaccustomed eccentric muscle contractions. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to examine the patterns of cortical activation arising during DOMS-related pain in the quadriceps muscle of healthy volunteers evoked by either voluntary contraction or physical stimulation. The painful movement or physical stimulation of the DOMS-affected thigh disclosed widespread activation in the primary somatosensory and motor (S1, M1) cortices, stretching far beyond the corresponding areas somatotopically related to contraction or physical stimulation of the thigh; activation also included a large area within the cingulate cortex encompassing posteroanterior regions and the cingulate motor area. Pain-related activations were also found in premotor (M2) areas, bilateral in the insular cortex and the thalamic nuclei. In contrast, movement of a DOMS-affected limb led also to activation in the ipsilateral anterior cerebellum, while DOMS-related pain evoked by physical stimulation devoid of limb movement did not.
Department of Physiology and Pathophysiology, Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany. zimmermann@physiologie1.uni-erlangen.de
Katharina
K
Zimmermann
Caroline
C
Leidl
Miriam
M
Kaschka
Richard W
RW
Carr
Pavel
P
Terekhin
Hermann O
HO
Handwerker
Clemens
C
Forster
D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D018482:Muscle, Skeletal / Q000502:physiology; D010146:Pain / Q000503:physiopathology*; D010812:Physical Stimulation; D052097:Quadriceps Muscle / Q000502:physiology; D013787:Thalamic Nuclei / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult