In recent years, numerous studies have established a connection between blood pressure and nocioception. While this connection is well documented in the literature, its underlying physiological mechanisms have yet to be elucidated. Much attention has focused on the relationship between cardiovascular regulatory centers and nocioception, yet the intricacies of this relationship have not been ful...

Influence of stress (cold) on visual reaction time (VRT) for red, green and yellow colours and auditory reaction time (ART) for high and low pitched sounds was studied in 60 healthy subjects (17-19 years) by digital display response time apparatus. Pain threshold and pain tolerance time were 23.02 +/- 8.11 and 249.35 +/- 64.88 sec. respectively. During the standard cold pressor test (CPT), ther...

Sympathetically mediated renal vasoconstriction may contribute to the pathogenesis of hypertension in older adults, but empirical data in support of this concept are lacking. In 10 young (26 ± 1 yr) and 11 older (67 ± 2 yr) subjects, we quantified acute hemodynamic responses to three sympathoexcitatory stimuli: local cooling of the forehead, cold pressor test (CPT), and voluntary apnea. We hypo...

The large inter-individual variability in the magnitude of analgesia in response to opioids and the high prevalence of adverse events associated with their use underline the clinical importance of being able to predict who will or will not respond to opioid treatment. The present study used both static and dynamic quantitative sensory testing (QST) on 40 healthy volunteers in order to test whet...

BACKGROUND Cardiovascular responses to cold stimulation are well characterised. It is unclear, however, whether cold pain stimulates responses in colonic tone in the transverse and sigmoid regions. AIMS To assess the effects of cold stimulation on tone nd motility in the transverse and sigmoid colon and on cardiovascular autonomic activity. METHODS Phasic and tonic motility of the transvers...

The cold pressor test (CPT) triggers in healthy subjects a vascular sympathetic activation and an increase in blood pressure. The heart rate (HR) response to this test is less well defined, with a high inter-individual variability. We used traditional spectral analysis together with the non-linear detrended fluctuation analysis to study the autonomic control of HR during a 3-min CPT. 39 healthy...

Dissociative symptoms and abnormalities in pain perception have been associated with a range of disorders. The authors tested whether experimentally induced increases in state dissociation would cause an analgesic response. Participants (N = 120) were randomized to a dissociation induction condition via audiophotic stimulation or a credible control condition and were compared on pre- and postch...

A study was performed in 13 patients with idiopathic mitral valve prolapse and in 21 control subjects to assess the effect of the cold pressor test on systolic motion of the mitral valve. A significant increase in blood pressure occurred in 10 patients with mitral valve prolapse and in 19 controls after immersion of one hand in ice-cold water. M-mode echocardiographic recordings from the mitral...

BACKGROUND In the past two decades, there has been increasing evidence to suggest that trigeminal neuralgia (TN) may be linked to a dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system (ANS). The aim of the present study was to formally test this hypothesis by comparing the reactivity of the ANS to experimental pain in a population of TN patients and healthy controls. METHODS Twelve patients diagnosed...