Test-retest reliability of quantitative sensory testing for mechanical somatosensory and pain modulation assessment of masticatory structures.

Assessing the reliability of medical measurements is a crucial step towards the elaboration of an applicable clinical instrument. There are few studies that evaluate the reliability of somatosensory assessment and pain modulation of masticatory structures. This study estimated the test-retest reliability, that is over time, of the mechanical somatosensory assessment of anterior temporalis, masseter and temporomandibular joint (TMJ) and the conditioned pain modulation (CPM) using the anterior temporalis as the test site. Twenty healthy women were evaluated in two sessions (1 week apart) by the same examiner. Mechanical detection threshold (MDT), mechanical pain threshold (MPT), wind-up ratio (WUR) and pressure pain threshold (PPT) were assessed on the skin overlying the anterior temporalis, masseter and TMJ of the dominant side. CPM was tested by comparing PPT before and during the hand immersion in a hot water bath. anova and intra-class correlation coefficients (ICCs) were applied to the data (α = 5%). The overall ICCs showed acceptable values for the test-retest reliability of mechanical somatosensory assessment of masticatory structures. The ICC values of 75% of all quantitative sensory measurements were considered fair to excellent (fair = 8·4%, good = 33·3% and excellent = 33·3%). However, the CPM paradigm presented poor reliability (ICC = 0·25). The mechanical somatosensory assessment of the masticatory structures, but not the proposed CPM protocol, can be considered sufficiently reliable over time to evaluate the trigeminal sensory function.

Five new species of genus Astyanax Baird & Girard, 1854 from Rio Iguaçu, Paraná, Brazil (Ostariophysi, Characiformes, Characidae).

Five new species of the Neotropical characiform genus Astyanax Baird & Girard are described from Rio Iguaçu at the border of Paraná and Santa Catarina states, southeastern Brazil and Astyanax gymnogenis Eigenmann is redescribed. Each new species can be distinguished from all other Astyanax species from the upper Rio Paraná basin by exclusive combinations of: tooth shape, number of dental cuspids, distance between third infraorbital and preopercle, number of lateral line scales, longitudinal series of scales, number of gill-rakers and differences from shape of body and head traits. This study proposes the species of genus Astyanax from Rio Iguaçu as probably endemic, since all of them are absent from tributaries of the Rio Paraná hydrographic system. The high degree of diversification acquired by those Astyanax species in the Iguaçu basin may perhaps be allied to the long isolation period of this river from the Rio Paraná basin caused by the Iguaçu waterfalls. This barrier probably isolated those basins resulting in original groups of Characiformes and then Astyanax species, both isolated from one another and both different from their relatives in neighbouring basins.