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Journal ArticleDOI

COMT val158met Genotype Affects µ-Opioid Neurotransmitter Responses to a Pain Stressor

TLDR
Individuals homozygous for themet158 allele of the catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) polymorphism showed diminished regional μ-opioid system responses to pain compared with heterozygotes, and these effects were accompanied by higher sensory and affective ratings of pain and a more negative internal affective state.
Abstract
Responses to pain and other stressors are regulated by interactions between multiple brain areas and neurochemical systems. We examined the influence of a common functional genetic polymorphism affecting the metabolism of catecholamines on the modulation of responses to sustained pain in humans. Individuals homozygous for the met 158 allele of the catechol- O -methyltransferase (COMT) polymorphism ( val 158 met ) showed diminished regional μ-opioid system responses to pain compared with heterozygotes. These effects were accompanied by higher sensory and affective ratings of pain and a more negative internal affective state. Opposite effects were observed in val 158 homozygotes. The COMT val 158 met polymorphism thus influences the human experience of pain and may underlie interindividual differences in the adaptation and responses to pain and other stressful stimuli.

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Citations
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Persistent postsurgical pain: risk factors and prevention

TL;DR: Strategies for identification of patients at risk and for prevention and possible treatment of this important entity of chronic pain are outlined.
Journal ArticleDOI

Human brain mechanisms of pain perception and regulation in health and disease.

TL;DR: A systematic review of the literature regarding how activity in diverse brain regions creates and modulates the experience of acute and chronic pain states, emphasizing the contribution of various imaging techniques to emerging concepts is presented in this paper.
Journal ArticleDOI

The Cerebral Signature for Pain Perception and Its Modulation

TL;DR: It is suggested that the brainstem plays a pivotal role in gating the degree of nociceptive transmission so that the resultant pain experienced is appropriate for the particular situation of the individual.
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Chronic Back Pain Is Associated with Decreased Prefrontal and Thalamic Gray Matter Density

TL;DR: In this paper, brain morphology of 26 chronic back pain patients to matched control subjects was compared using magnetic resonance imaging brain scan data and automated analysis techniques, using voxel-based morphometry and nonparametric statistics.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI

Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales.

TL;DR: Two 10-item mood scales that comprise the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) are developed and are shown to be highly internally consistent, largely uncorrelated, and stable at appropriate levels over a 2-month time period.
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Pain affect encoded in human anterior cingulate but not somatosensory cortex.

TL;DR: These findings provide direct experimental evidence in humans linking frontal-lobe limbic activity with pain affect, as originally suggested by early clinical lesion studies.
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Effect of COMT Val108/158 Met genotype on frontal lobe function and risk for schizophrenia.

TL;DR: The data suggest that the COMT Val allele, because it increases prefrontal dopamine catabolism, impairs prefrontal cognition and physiology, and by this mechanism slightly increases risk for schizophrenia.
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Placebo and opioid analgesia - Imaging a shared neuronal network

TL;DR: Using positron emission tomography, it is confirmed that both opioid and placebo analgesia are associated with increased activity in the rostral anterior cingulate cortex and the brainstem, indicating a related neural mechanism in placebo and opioid analgesia.
Journal ArticleDOI

A neuromodulatory role for the human amygdala in processing emotional facial expressions

TL;DR: Functional neuroimaging confirmed that the amygdala and some of its functionally connected structures mediate specific neural responses to fearful expressions and demonstrated that amygdalar responses predict expression-specific neural activity in extrastriate cortex.
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