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Serra, Jordi; Collado, Antonio; Solà, Romà; Antonelli, Francesca; Torres, Xavier; Salgueiro, Mónika; Quiles, Cristina; Bostock, Hugh

doi:10.1002/ana.24268

Cited by 5 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Fibromyalgia has neuropathic pain features: it is a stimulus-independent pain state, accompanied by allodynia and paresthesias (2). The notion of fibromyalgia as a neuropathic pain syndrome has been recently reinforced by several controlled studies describing small fiber neuropathy in patients with fibromyalgia (3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8). Small fiber neuropathy is a disorder of the peripheral nerves that mainly affects small sensory fibers and sympathetic fibers resulting in pain, paresthesias and autonomic dysfunction.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Small fiber neuropathy in women with fibromyalgia. An in vivo assessment using corneal confocal bio-microscopy

Ramı́rez

Martínez-Martínez

Hernández-Quíntela

et al. 2015

Seminars in Arthritis and Rheumatism

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Small fiber neuropathy in women with fibromyalgia. An in vivo assessment using corneal confocal bio-microscopy

Ramı́rez

Martínez-Martínez

Hernández-Quíntela

et al. 2015

Seminars in Arthritis and Rheumatism

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“…We also saw an apparently conflicting small increase in warm detection threshold without a change in cold detection threshold in fibromyalgia patients. These slightly contradictory findings could fit with the proposition that this is due to altered functioning in primary afferents due to a latent small fibre neuropathy [17,77] and hyperexcitable C-nociceptors [72]. On the other hand, recent evidence from a laser evoked potential study, failed to reveal the expected abnormal responses in fibromyalgia patients [2].…”

Section: A C C E P T E Dmentioning

confidence: 77%

“…There are a plethora of studies reporting alterations in nociception and pain processing in patients with fibromyalgia. One intriguing line of investigations has reported a small fibre deficit and altered function of nociceptive primary afferents [31,50,56,72,77] which may give rise to hyperalgesia. As a counterpoint theory, fibromyalgia has also been proposed to be a "centralised" pain condition [12] characterised by augmented brain responses to noxious stimuli that underlies hyperalgesia [15,30,66].…”

Section: A C C E P T E Dmentioning

confidence: 99%

Central pain modulatory mechanisms of attentional analgesia are preserved in fibromyalgia

Oliva

Gregory

Brooks

et al. 2021

Pain

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Fibromyalgia is a prevalent pain condition that is associated with cognitive impairments including in attention, memory, and executive processing. It has been proposed that fibromyalgia may be caused by altered central pain processing characterised by a loss of endogenous pain modulation. We tested whether attentional analgesia, where cognitive engagement diminishes pain percept, was attenuated in fibromyalgia patients (n=20) compared to matched healthy controls (n=20). An individually calibrated, attentional analgesia paradigm with a 2x2 block design was used with brain and brainstem-focussed fMRI. Fibromyalgia patients had both lower heat pain thresholds and speeds in a visual attention task. When this was taken into account for both attentional task and thermal stimulation, then both groups exhibited an equivalent degree of attentional analgesia. fMRI analysis showed similar patterns of activation in the main effects of pain and attention in the brain and brainstem (with the sole exceptions of increased activation in the control group in frontopolar cortex and the ipsilateral locus coeruleus). The attentional analgesic effect correlated with activity in the periaqueductal grey and rostroventromedial medulla. These findings indicate that fibromyalgia patients can engage the descending pain modulatory system if the attentional task and noxious stimulus intensity is appropriately titrated.

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“…Spontaneous or ectopic activity in DRG neurons is a likely cause of neuropathic pain (Haroutounian et al, 2014;Vaso et al, 2014;North et al, 2019;Middleton et al, 2021) and may be a driver of pain in other diseases, like fibromyalgia (Serra et al, 2014). This ectopic activity generates an aberrant signal that is conveyed through the spinal cord to the brain to cause pain sensations in people who suffer from neuropathic pain.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

RNA Profiling of Neuropathic Pain-Associated Human DRGs Reveal Sex-differences in Neuro-immune Interactions Promoting Pain

Ray

Shiers

Ferreira

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Neuropathic pain is a leading cause of high impact pain, is often disabling and is poorly managed by current therapeutics. Here we focused on a unique group of neuropathic pain patients undergoing thoracic vertebrectomy where the DRG is removed as part of the surgery allowing for molecular characterization and identification of mechanistic drivers of neuropathic pain independently of preclinical models. Our goal was to quantify whole transcriptome RNA abundances using RNA-seq in pain-associated human DRGs from these patients, allowing comprehensive identification of molecular changes in these samples by contrasting them with non-pain associated DRGs. We sequenced 70 human DRGs, including over 50 having mRNA libraries with neuronal mRNA. Our expression analysis revealed profound sex differences in differentially expressed genes including increase of IL1B, TNF, CXCL14, and OSM in male and including CCL1, CCL21, PENK and TLR3 in female DRGs associated with neuropathic pain. Co-expression modules revealed enrichment in members of JUN-FOS signaling in males, and centromere protein coding genes in females. Neuro-immune signaling pathways revealed distinct cytokine signaling pathways associated with neuropathic pain in males (OSM, LIF, SOCS1) and females (CCL1, CCL19, CCL21). We validated cellular expression profiles of a subset of these findings using RNAscope in situ hybridization. Our findings give direct support for sex differences in underlying mechanisms of neuropathic pain in patient populations.

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Cited by 5 publications

References 17 publications

Small fiber neuropathy in women with fibromyalgia. An in vivo assessment using corneal confocal bio-microscopy

Small fiber neuropathy in women with fibromyalgia. An in vivo assessment using corneal confocal bio-microscopy

Central pain modulatory mechanisms of attentional analgesia are preserved in fibromyalgia

RNA Profiling of Neuropathic Pain-Associated Human DRGs Reveal Sex-differences in Neuro-immune Interactions Promoting Pain

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