Abstract Objective To investigate the influence of anxiety/depression, sleep quality and pain catastrophizing in conditioned pain modulation (CPM) in women with episodic/chronic migraine and pain-free women. Design A cross-sectional case-control study. Setting Laboratory experimental study. Subjects Seventy women with chronic migraine, 70 women with episodic migraine and 70 pain-free women. Methods Migraine features and psychological/emotional (e.g., anxiety, depression, sleep, pain catastrophizing) aspects were evaluated. Pressure pain thresholds (PPT) were assessed at the temporalis, lateral epicondyle, and tibialis anterior muscle. Heat (HPT) and cold (CPT) pain thresholds were assessed at the frontalis muscle. Thus, CPM was evaluated immediately after one minute cold-pressor test paradigm on changes in mechanical/thermal stimuli after the conditioned stimulus. Result Significant group*time interactions without significant effect of anxiety/depressive levels, sleep quality, or pain catastrophizing for PPTs at the temporalis muscle (Wilk’s λ = 0.646, F2,201=55.108, p 0.001, n2p = 0.354, 1-β=0.999), epicondyle (Wilk’s λ = 0.736, F2,201=36.024, p 0.001, n2p = 0.264, 1-β=0.999), and tibialis anterior (Wilk’s λ = 0.798, F2,201=25.148, p 0.001, n2p = 0.202, 1-β=0.999) were found: PPTs were higher in all points after the conditioned stimulus in pain-free women (increases from 10.7–16.2%) whereas PPTs in all points were lower after conditioned stimulus in women with migraine (decrease from -7.6% to -0.3%) as compared to PPT at baseline. Changes in HPT and CPT were small (1%). Conclusion Women with migraine showed CPM deficits against mechanical, not thermal, stimuli compared to women without migraine. Deficits in CPM were similar between women with episodic/chronic migraine. Anxiety/depressive levels, sleep quality and pain catastrophizing did not influence CPM in women with migraine.
Cigarán‐Méndez et al. (Fri,) studied this question.