Pain Processing in Adults With Migraines

Summary

Primary Objective of this study: To assess experimental heat pain responses (pain intensity, pain unpleasantness, pain catastrophizing, emotional reactivity) in migraineurs vs. healthy controls.

The current tools of migraine pain measurement are inadequate to distinguish the overall burden of suffering, as there is an over reliance on a single numerical pain score to represent the entire pain experience. Measuring and targeting the affective component, in addition to the sensory component of pain, may capture this discrepancy in disease burden. The affective component of migraine pain may be just as important as the sensory component to target and measure since it significantly impacts outcomes, disability, and has therapeutic treatment implications.

Quantitative sensory testing (QST) is a robust lab paradigm (not a clinical experience) that delivers one painful noxious thermal stimuli and asks for simultaneous pain intensity and pain unpleasantness scores. By using this in the research, investigators will be able to differentiate the sensory (pain quality-what the pain feels like) from the affective (how awful/unpleasant the pain feels) components of experimental pain in normal controls vs. migrainuers.

No previous studies have evaluated differences in experimental pain intensity vs. pain unpleasantness in migraineurs vs. controls. As migraine pain uniquely involves many altered sensory phenomenon (e.g., photophobia, phonophobia), it cannot be assumed that responses to experimental pain in migraine will be the same as other clinical pain syndromes. Further, different clinical pain syndromes have distinct responses to pain intensity vs. pain unpleasantness.

Conditions

• Migraines

Interventions

OTHER

Questionnaires

Before the experimental session, participants will use REDCap to complete several questionnaires used to assess outcomes.

OTHER

Quantitative Sensory Testing (QST) Pain Measurements

Investigators will administer noxious thermal stimulation to assess pain threshold temperatures and assess responses to pain on measures of pain intensity and pain unpleasantness

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Wake Forest University Health Sciences

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Rebecca E Wells, MD, MPH · Wake Forest University Health Sciences

Study Design

Allocation

NON_RANDOMIZED

Purpose

BASIC_SCIENCE

Masking

NONE

Model

SINGLE_GROUP

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2016-08-24

Primary Completion

2019-07-16

Completion

2019-07-16

Countries

• United States

Study Locations