Autonomic cardiovascular control and responses to experimental pain stimulation in fibromyalgia syndrome

Cardiovascular control in women with fibromyalgia syndrome: do causal methods provide nonredundant information compared with more traditional approaches?

“…fibromyalgia; baroreflex; autonomic nervous system; modeling; causality FIBROMYALGIA SYNDROME (FMS) is a noninflammatory syndrome characterized by chronic diffuse musculoskeletal pain, stiffness, and pain hypersensitivity in 18 specific points located in muscles or tendon muscle insertion called tender points (27). Although the painful condition is the main characteristic of this syndrome, advancements regarding the etiology and pathophysiology of FMS have attributed an important role to dysautonomia (i.e., the autonomic nervous system dysfunction) (4,7,11,12,24,25).The dysautonomia has been widely demonstrated in patients with FMS. Thus, it is known that FMS patients present an alteration of the cardiac autonomic modulation characterized by a high cardiac sympathetic modulation and low cardiac parasympathetic modulation even at rest (4,7,11,12,24,25).…”

“…Although the painful condition is the main characteristic of this syndrome, advancements regarding the etiology and pathophysiology of FMS have attributed an important role to dysautonomia (i.e., the autonomic nervous system dysfunction) (4,7,11,12,24,25).…”

“…Thus, it is known that FMS patients present an alteration of the cardiac autonomic modulation characterized by a high cardiac sympathetic modulation and low cardiac parasympathetic modulation even at rest (4,7,11,12,24,25). In addition, despite a normal baroreflex function, a lack of increased sympathetic discharge to vessels and decreased cardiac vagal activity has been reported during the orthostatic stimulus, which may account for the reduced orthostatic tolerance, commonly observed in these patients (7).Traditionally, the baroreflex sensitivity (BRS) in FMS patients has been studied through the computation of indices derived from spontaneous heart period (HP) and systolic arterial pressure (SAP) variabilities (4,7,11,12,24,25). However, these approaches to the quantification of BRS have many methodological drawbacks.…”

“…fibromyalgia; baroreflex; autonomic nervous system; modeling; causality FIBROMYALGIA SYNDROME (FMS) is a noninflammatory syndrome characterized by chronic diffuse musculoskeletal pain, stiffness, and pain hypersensitivity in 18 specific points located in muscles or tendon muscle insertion called tender points (27). Although the painful condition is the main characteristic of this syndrome, advancements regarding the etiology and pathophysiology of FMS have attributed an important role to dysautonomia (i.e., the autonomic nervous system dysfunction) (4,7,11,12,24,25).…”

“…Thus, it is known that FMS patients present an alteration of the cardiac autonomic modulation characterized by a high cardiac sympathetic modulation and low cardiac parasympathetic modulation even at rest (4,7,11,12,24,25). In addition, despite a normal baroreflex function, a lack of increased sympathetic discharge to vessels and decreased cardiac vagal activity has been reported during the orthostatic stimulus, which may account for the reduced orthostatic tolerance, commonly observed in these patients (7).…”