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Electrodermal responses to words in chronic low back pain patients: a comparison between pain descriptors, other emotional words, and neutral words.

Bonnet A, Naveteur J

Department of Biology, University of Lille I, Villeneuve d'Ascq, France.

OBJECTIVE: This study examines the electrodermal reactivity of chronic sufferers to emotional words. The hypothesis that patients are over-sensitive to pain descriptors is tested. METHODS: Electrodermal activity was recorded in 12 chronic low back pain patients and 12 healthy controls during passive viewing of words on a video monitor. These words were pain descriptors, other emotional words, and neutral words, in a pseudo-randomized order. A jingle was associated with the word occurrence. RESULTS: In chronic low back pain patients, skin conductance responses (SCRs) induced by pain descriptors or other emotional words were larger than SCRs induced by neutral words but they did not differ from each other. Patients presented SCRs, which were both larger and faster than those of controls, including following neutral words. There was no significant effect of word type in controls. Skin conductance level and the number of nonspecific fluctuations were larger in patients as compared with controls. CONCLUSIONS: The present electrodermal study suggests that chronic pain is linked to an increased reactivity to a wide range of stimuli. Emotional load amplifies the effect. This leads to recommend broad therapeutic management in chronic sufferers. Contrary to expectation derived from classical conditioning, patients did not prove over-sensitive to pain descriptors. This negative finding is discussed at methodologic, physiologic, and psychologic levels.

Published 21 September 2006 in Clin J Pain, 22(8): 686-91.
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