Salivary Alpha-Amylase Correlates with Subjective Heat Pain Perception.
Pain Med
; 17(6): 1131-6, 2016 06.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-26764337
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE:
Self-reports of pain are important for an adequate therapy. This is a problem with patients and infants who are restricted in providing an accurate verbal estimation of their pain. Reliable, real-time, economical, and non-invasive physiological correlates might contribute to a more comprehensive description of pain. Salivary alpha-amylase constitutes one candidate biomarker, which reflects predominantly sympathetic nervous system alterations under stressful conditions and can be measured non-invasively. The current study investigated the effects of acute heat pain on salivary alpha-amylase activity.METHODS:
Heat pain tolerance was measured on the non-dominant forearm. Participants completed visual analog scales on pain intensity and unpleasantness. Saliva samples were collected directly after pain induction.SUBJECTS:
Twenty-seven healthy volunteers were recruited for this study.RESULTS:
While salivary alpha-amylase levels correlated positively with intensity and unpleasantness ratings in response to acute heat pain stimuli, there was no corresponding association with pain tolerance.CONCLUSIONS:
Salivary alpha-amylase is suggested to be an indirect physiologic correlate of subjective heat pain perception. Future studies should address the role of salivary alpha-amylase depending on the origin of pain, the concerned tissue, and other pain assessment methods.Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Pain Measurement
/
Biomarkers
/
Salivary alpha-Amylases
/
Pain Perception
Limits:
Adult
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
Language:
En
Journal:
Pain Med
Journal subject:
NEUROLOGIA
/
PSICOFISIOLOGIA
Year:
2016
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Suiza