Investigating Self-Reported Sensory Intolerance and Perceptual Ability Across Sensory Modalities in Fibromyalgia

Fibromyalgia has predominantly been classified as a condition of amplified pain processing associated with greater sensitivity to pain. Beyond disturbed pain processing, emerging evidence suggests that people with fibromyalgia experience intolerances (increased unpleasantness) across sensory modalities. Limited research, however, has investigated how discrimination and detection in different senses are affected in this group. Understanding how basic perception is affected in fibromyalgia has important implications for treatment and could lead to the development of new perceptual training interventions. This study used self-report methods to investigate how different aspects of sensory processing in fibromyalgia, including detection/discrimination and intolerance, are affected across modalities.

One hundred and eighty-eight people with fibromyalgia and 121 controls completed the Sensory Hypersensitivity Scale (intolerance) and the Sensory Perception Quotient (discrimination/detection) online.

Pre-registered group comparisons revealed that the fibromyalgia group reported increased intolerance across all measured sensory modalities and an increased subjective perceptual ability (discrimination/detection) across all modalities except smell and taste. Exploratory cluster analysis identified three fibromyalgia subgroups. While one group reported low intolerance that was comparable to healthy controls, the remaining two groups primarily differed in their subjective perceptual ability with one group enhanced and the other reduced.

These findings suggest that there are heterogenous sensory features in fibromyalgia that point to the potential value of treatments focusing on non-pain perceptual processing for some people. Future research should investigate whether the higher subjective perceptual abilities reported by people with fibromyalgia are matched by superior objective perceptual ability.