Psychological Profiling and Quantitative Sensory Testing Parameters as Predictors of Experimental Induced Muscle Pain

Pain is a multifactorial problem, and several pain mechanisms are likely contributing to why an individual might experience more pain than another person. The current study aimed to investigate whether pain sensitivity, assessed by quantitative sensory testing, and psychological factors could explain individual variability in pain intensity during experimentally induced Delayed Onset of Muscle Soreness (DOMS).

Demographics, psychological distress, sleep quality, pain catastrophising, bodily sensation, alexithymia, pressure pain threshold, pain tolerance threshold, temporal summation of pain, and conditioned pain modulation were assessed at baseline in 32 healthy participants. Delayed onset of muscle soreness was induced using eccentric calf raises. During the following 3 days, the participants reported their pain intensity during muscle contraction (visual analogue scale, 0-10), sleep duration (hours), and sleep quality (visual analogue scale, 0-10).

Linear regression models with backwards elimination found that cuff pressure pain threshold, temporal summation of pain, and symptoms of anxiety and depression predicted 30.2% of the variation in peak pain intensity, while cuff pressure pain threshold and symptoms of anxiety and depression predicted 28.8% of the variation in cumulative pain intensity. Delayed onset of muscle soreness pain was not found to be mediated by sleep quality, sleep time or sleep efficiency.

Psychological state and mechanisms indicative of pain sensitisation are related to the pain intensity during a bout of experimentally induced delayed onset of muscle soreness.

Pain is variable and an acute injury might be more painful to some than others. It is currently unclear what the underlying reasons for this variability are. This work demonstrates that increased sensitivity to pain and increase psychological load is associated with higher pain intensities following an experimental pain model. This suggests that certain people are more vulnerable to pain than others and that psychological and pain sensitivity measures might be measure to identify these pain vulnerable people.