Highlights
- •Although race shapes the experience of pain in adults, less is known about youth.
- •Conditioned pain modulation (CPM) may be a risk factor for chronic pain.
- •CPM to evoked thermal pain was assessed in 78 healthy youth.
- •Stronger CPM effects were observed in African Americans than in non-Hispanic whites.
- •Results suggest no CPM impairment in African American youth.
Abstract
Race and ethnicity shape the experience of pain in adults. African Americans typically
exhibit greater pain intensity and evoked pain responsiveness than non-Hispanic whites.
However, it remains unclear whether there are racial differences in conditioned pain
modulation (CPM) and if these are present in youth. CPM refers to a reduction in perceived
pain intensity for a test stimulus during application of a conditioning stimulus and
may be especially relevant in determining risk for chronic pain. The present study
assessed CPM to evoked thermal pain in 78 healthy youth (ages 10–17 years), 51% of
whom were African American and 49% of whom were non-Hispanic white. African American
youth reported lower mean conditioning pain ratings than non-Hispanic white youth,
controlling for mean preconditioning pain ratings, which is consistent with stronger
CPM. Multilevel models demonstrated stronger CPM effects in African American than
non-Hispanic white youth, as evident in more rapid within-person decreases in pain
ratings during the conditioning phase. These findings suggest that diminished CPM
likely does not account for the enhanced responsiveness to evoked thermal pain observed
in African American youth. These results may have implications for understanding racial
differences in chronic pain experienced in adulthood.
Perspective
This study evaluated conditioned pain modulation to evoked thermal pain in African
American and non-Hispanic white youth. Findings could have implications for the development
of personalized chronic pain treatment strategies that are informed by race and ethnicity.
Key words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: June 15, 2015
Accepted:
June 9,
2015
Received in revised form:
May 5,
2015
Received:
March 20,
2015
Footnotes
Research was funded in part by grants from the National Institute of Health (UL1 RR024975/TR000445, U54 RR026140/MD007593, G12 RR003032/MD007586, R01 MH068391, K01 MH101403, RO1 DA017805, R24 DA021471, R01 DA031726, R01 DA037891, R01 HD23264), by NICHD Grant P30HD15052 to the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development, by the Endowed Chair in Brain and Behavior Research at Meharry Medical College (U.R.), and by the Betsey R. Bush Endowed Professorship in Behavioral Health at the University of Tennessee (U.R.). These funding agencies had no further role in the study design, data collection, analysis or interpretation of data, writing of the report, or the decision to submit the manuscript for publication.
The authors report no conflicts of interest.
Identification
Copyright
© 2015 American Pain Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
