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Published on: March 31, 2016
Experimental Sleep Restriction Facilitates Pain and Electrically Induced Cortical Responses
Dagfinn Matre1, Li Hu2, Leif A Viken1,3
1National Institute of Occupational Health, Department of Work Psychology and Physiology, Oslo, Norway.
Study Objectives:
Sleep restriction (SR) has been hypothesized to sensitize the pain system. The current study determined whether experimental sleep restriction had an effect on experimentally induced pain and pain-elicited electroencephalographic (EEG) responses.
Design:
A paired crossover study.
Intervention:
Pain testing was performed after 2 nights of 50% SR and after 2 nights with habitual sleep (HS).
Setting:
Laboratory experiment at research center.
Participants:
Self-reported healthy volunteers (n = 21, age range: 18-31 y).
Measurements And Results:
Brief high-density electrical stimuli to the forearm skin produced pinprick-like pain. Subjective pain ratings increased after SR, but only in response to the highest stimulus intensity (P = 0.018). SR increased the magnitude of the pain-elicited EEG response analyzed in the time-frequency domain (P = 0.021). Habituation across blocks did not differ between HS and SR. Event-related desynchronization (ERD) was reduced after SR (P = 0.039). Pressure pain threshold of the trapezius muscle region also decreased after SR (P = 0.017).
Conclusion:
Sleep restriction (SR) increased the sensitivity to pressure pain and to electrically induced pain of moderate, but not low, intensity. The increased electrical pain could not be explained by a difference in habituation. Increased response magnitude is possibly related to reduced processing within the somatosensory cortex after partial SR.
