The sympathetic nervous responses to cold stress are known; however, concurrent cardiovascular and ocular parameter alterations in the responses are poorly characterized. The aim of this study was to examine the influence of the cold pressor test (CP...
18 February 2022
Background. Differences in pain perception in athletes have recently been highlighted in the literature. Objectives. To compare gender ratings of perceived pain in athletes with low and high agonistic experiences (N = 200) using the Cold Pressor Test...
Background/Objectives: Fibromyalgia (FM) is a syndrome characterized by widespread chronic pain as the primary symptom. Neurophysiological pain mechanisms, such as the function of the descending inhibitory system, are impaired in this condition. The...
Adrenergic receptors (AR) play a vital role in cardiovascular system regulation. The ADRB2 gene, encoding the β2-AR receptor, has genetic variability potentially impacting blood pressure (BP) regulation. Evidence for such associations has been i...
Using laser speckle flowgraphy (LSFG), we investigated the time course of changes in choroidal circulation hemodynamics after a cold pressor test in healthy eyes. This prospective study included the right eye of 19 young healthy participants. The mac...
Speckle Plethysmography (SPG) and Photoplethysmography (PPG) are different biophotonics technologies that allow for measurement of haemodynamics. As the difference between SPG and PPG under low perfusion conditions is not fully understood, a Cold Pre...
Parents’ ability to regulate their emotions is essential to providing supportive caregiving behaviours when their child is in pain. Extant research focuses on parent self-reported experience or observable behavioural responses. Physiological respondi...
Radial pulse diagnosis is the most common method to examine the human health state in Traditional East Asian Medicine (TEAM). A cold stress-related suboptimal health state (subhealth) is often undetectable during routine medical examinations, however...
Background/Objectives: Headache after a traumatic brain injury (TBI) is one of the most common post-concussive symptoms and is associated with altered pain processing and elevated disability levels. Understanding physiologic correlates of nociception...
5 July 2021
Background. Recently, a growing interest has emerged in the role of attention and hypervigilance in the experience of pain. Shifting attention away from pain seems likely to reduce the perception of pain itself. Objectives. The present study has been...
Background/Objectives: Although increased nociceptive excitability and deficient endogenous pain modulation are considered key features of pronociception and central sensitization, their contribution to neuropathic pain (NP) characteristics in SCI is...
The aim was to create and study a possible behavioural measure for trait(s) in humans that reflect the ability and motivation to continue an unpleasant behaviour, i.e., behavioural perseverance or persistence (BP). We utilised six different tasks wit...
Few studies in the literature have illustrated cold hypoalgesia induced by strength training. Objectives of this contribution were to compare the ratings of perceived pain in endurance running (n = 22) and powerlifting (n = 22) male athletes and cont...
Objective: This study developed the Uncertain Drop Stress Test (UDST), an uncertain stress induction paradigm based on the high survival-relevant threat of fear of falling, wherein neither the occurrence nor the timing of the fall is predictable. The...
Background: Placebo has been studied for many years and is ever-present in healthcare. In clinical practice, its use is limited by ethical issues raised by the deception entailed by its administration. Objective: To investigate whether, when given de...
Background: In addition to motor symptoms, persons with Parkinson’s disease (PD) experience several non-motor symptoms with challenges in working memory being particularly common. These cognitive challenges may worsen under stress. The purpose...
Sympatico–vagal balance is essential for regulating cardiac electrophysiology and plays an important role in arrhythmogenic conditions. Various noninvasive methods, including electrocardiography (ECG), have been used for clinical assessment of...
There is increasing academic and clinical interest in understanding the nature of the relation between diet and response to stress exposure as a risk factor for mental illness. Cross-species evidence shows that conditions of chronic and acute stress...
Pain is a complex phenomenon that arises from the interaction of multiple neuroanatomic and neurochemical systems with several cognitive and affective processes. Nowadays, the assessment of pain intensity still relies on the use of self-reports. Howe...
Objective: The aim of this study is to assess whether pain-inducing manual pressure (PIMP) leads to effects on pressure pain threshold (PPT) mediated by conditioned pain modulation (CPM) and whether these effects are influenced by the intensity and r...
Alterations of heart rate variability (HRV) are associated with various (patho)physiological conditions; therefore, HRV analysis has the potential to become a useful diagnostic module of wearable/telemedical devices to support remote cardiovascular/a...
Background/Objectives: For the rapid, objective characterization of the physiological stress response, there is currently no generally recognized standard. The stress measurement methods used in practice (e.g., for psychological measures of stress) a...
Pain is considered an unpleasant perceptual experience associated with actual or potential somatic and visceral harm. Human subjects have different sensitivity to painful stimulation, which may be related to different painful response pattern. Excell...
Few studies have examined the time-dependent effects of stress on fear learning. Previously, we found that stress immediately before fear conditioning enhanced fear learning. Here, we aimed to extend these findings by assessing the effects of stress...
Cardiovascular disease, like hypertension, is one of the top killers of human life and early detection of cardiovascular disease is of great importance. However, traditional medical devices are often bulky and expensive, and unsuitable for home healt...
A wearable closed-loop transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) platform has been developed to address the limitations of conventional open-loop neuromodulation systems. Unlike existing systems such as CLoSES—which targets intracrania...
In uncertain situations, individuals seek to maximize rewards while managing risks. Yet, the effects of acute stress and anxiety on decision-making in ambiguous and risky contexts are unclear. This study aims to contribute to the exploration of how a...
Stress can increase emotional vigilance at the cost of a decrease in attention towards non-emotional stimuli. However, the time-dependent effects of acute stress on emotion processing are uncertain. We tested the effects of acute stress on subsequent...
Background: The increasing use of virtual reality (VR) has extended into medical applications, including pain management through immersive mechanisms. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the Clone Hero for reducing pain intensity, thres...
Oxytocin is well known for its role in relationships and social cognition and has more recently been implicated in pain relief and pain perception. Connections between prosocial feelings and pain relief are also well documented; however, the effects...
Despite most episodes of low back pain (LBP) being short-lasting, some transition into persistent long-lasting problems. Hence, the need for a deeper understanding of the physiological mechanisms of this is pertinent. Therefore, the aims of the prese...
Caffeine substantially affects cardiovascular functioning, yet wide variability exists in caffeine control procedures in cardiovascular reactivity research. This study was conducted in order to identify a minimal abstention duration in habitual coffe...
Postmenopausal women (PMW) may experience endothelial dysfunction associated with arginine (ARG) deficiency relative to asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA) caused by oxidative stress. Endothelial dysfunction contributes to increased blood pressure (BP...
Stress modulates feedback-based learning, a process that has been implicated in declining mental function in aging and mental disorders. While acute physical and psychosocial stressors have been used interchangeably in studies on feedback-based learn...
Introduction: Migraine is featured by altered nociceptive processing and the presence of cognitive impairments. No study has previously investigated the influence of neurocognitive performance and executive functions in descending pain processing in...
Endothelial dysfunction worsens when body mass index (BMI) increases. Pannexin1 (Panx1) ATP release channels regulate endothelial function and lipid homeostasis in mice. We investigated whether the Panx1-400A>C single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)...
Automatic pain intensity assessment from physiological signals has become an appealing approach, but it remains a largely unexplored research topic. Most studies have used machine learning approaches built on carefully designed features based on the...
The role of the catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) Val158Met rs4680 polymorphism in altered pain processing in headaches is controversial. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of the Val158Met rs4680 polymorphism in conditioned pai...
In this study, we investigated the associations between implicit associative learning with the cortisol and salivary alpha-amylase (sAA) stress response to an acute stressor as well as their associations with attention. Eighty one healthy adults (25...
Background: The International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) conceptualizes pain as a subjective experience, influenced by biopsychosocial factors, strongly related to the person’s environment and previous experience. It is necessary...
Wearable devices for continuous health monitoring in humans are constantly evolving, yet the signal quality may be improved by optimizing electrode placement. While the commonly used locations to measure electrodermal activity (EDA) are at the finger...
Objectives: Chronic pain corresponds to hypersensitivity to painful stimuli; however, its relation to acute pain sensitivity in children is poorly understood. We explored this relationship by comparing acute and chronic pain measures, along with rela...
11 October 2021
Delivering metaphors experientially has been emphasized in several psychotherapies, such as acceptance and commitment therapy. However, few research has analyzed the variables involved in the efficacy of metaphors. This experimental analog study aims...
High levels of stress and individual differences in acute stress responses are important predictors of chronic illness. This study examined the effects of stress and Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) on heart rate variability (HRV) using the Yale Pain Stres...
Acute stress impairs executive functions, and these higher-order cognitive processes are often positively associated with intelligence. Even though intelligence is generally stable over time, performance in an intelligence test can be influenced by a...
Introduction: Among its effect on virtually all other organs, COVID-19 affects the cardiovascular system, potentially jeopardizing the cardiovascular health of millions. Previous research has shown no indication of macrovascular dysfunction as reflec...
Pain is a multifaceted, multisystem disorder that adversely affects neuro-psychological processes. This study compares the effectiveness of central stimulation (transcranial direct current stimulation—tDCS over F3/F4) and peripheral stimulation...
Microalgae, a marine-derived natural ingredient, has emerged as a rich source of bioactive compounds with the potential to modulate gut–brain axis activities. The objective of this study was to investigate whether supplementation with a microal...