Guo Nianfeng, Li Xintian, Institute of Psychology, Academia Sinica.
Zhu Pei, Shangzhuang Commune Hospital.
Since the application of acupunctural anesthesia to surgery multidisciplinary researches were performed. Works in neurophysiology and neurochemistry have made great contributions to the establishment of pain theories as well as to the exploring of pain mechanism. However, the study of the characteristics and roles of pain as a psychological process is one of the main tasks in psychology.
In ancient China there was the "Shizheng" Theory (the disease being influenced by seasonal variation that explained the relationship between diseases and human bodies). There was also the Theory of "Ziwuliuzhu" (the energy and blood circulating in various parts of the body according to the different hour) which was considered as one of the hypotheses of acupuncture. These ideas are somewhat akin to that of modern biological rhythms. Guided by these concepts, we started to study the periodic changes of human cutaneous pain threshold in the practice of acupunctural anesthesia since 1975.
Pain was induced by thermal pulse stimulation. Points of the extremities were selected for the tests. Totally there were 132 points .The cutaneous pain threshold were determined in 20 subjects (6 male and 4 female young medical physicians) four times in a year, i.e. in spring (the late March), summer (the early of June), Autumn (the late Sept.) and winter (the early of Jan.). Meanwhile the skin temperature and room temperature were recorded. The results suggested that there was a "6 months" circadian rhythm in the cutaneous pain threshold with the first peak in March (the mean value of reactional time was 600.6±110.6 centiseconds) and the second peak in Sept. (the mean value was 605.5 ± 76.7 centisec.) The two lowest phases of rhythmic changes in a year occurred in June and Jan. with the mean value of 454 ± 26.3 centisec. and 435.9 ± 60.8 centisec. respectively. There were significant differences (P<0.001) between each two adjacent measurings in all the four measurements. 81.9% of the cases showed the changes of cutaneous pain threshold with a "6 months" circadian rhythm.
The supplementary experiment (experiment for correlation between skin temperature and pain induced by thermal stimulation) suggested that the change of cutaneous pain threshold was not solely dependent on the change of skin temperature. As a psychological reaction, pain seems to have a "6 months" circadian rhythm itself. The reason remains obscure.
In spite of the mechanism of rhythmicity of cutaneous pain threshold is yet unknown, attention should be paid to this phenomenon by the workers in the field of pain research. The question needs further investigation.
Zhu Pei, Shangzhuang Commune Hospital.
Since the application of acupunctural anesthesia to surgery multidisciplinary researches were performed. Works in neurophysiology and neurochemistry have made great contributions to the establishment of pain theories as well as to the exploring of pain mechanism. However, the study of the characteristics and roles of pain as a psychological process is one of the main tasks in psychology.
In ancient China there was the "Shizheng" Theory (the disease being influenced by seasonal variation that explained the relationship between diseases and human bodies). There was also the Theory of "Ziwuliuzhu" (the energy and blood circulating in various parts of the body according to the different hour) which was considered as one of the hypotheses of acupuncture. These ideas are somewhat akin to that of modern biological rhythms. Guided by these concepts, we started to study the periodic changes of human cutaneous pain threshold in the practice of acupunctural anesthesia since 1975.
Pain was induced by thermal pulse stimulation. Points of the extremities were selected for the tests. Totally there were 132 points .The cutaneous pain threshold were determined in 20 subjects (6 male and 4 female young medical physicians) four times in a year, i.e. in spring (the late March), summer (the early of June), Autumn (the late Sept.) and winter (the early of Jan.). Meanwhile the skin temperature and room temperature were recorded. The results suggested that there was a "6 months" circadian rhythm in the cutaneous pain threshold with the first peak in March (the mean value of reactional time was 600.6±110.6 centiseconds) and the second peak in Sept. (the mean value was 605.5 ± 76.7 centisec.) The two lowest phases of rhythmic changes in a year occurred in June and Jan. with the mean value of 454 ± 26.3 centisec. and 435.9 ± 60.8 centisec. respectively. There were significant differences (P<0.001) between each two adjacent measurings in all the four measurements. 81.9% of the cases showed the changes of cutaneous pain threshold with a "6 months" circadian rhythm.
The supplementary experiment (experiment for correlation between skin temperature and pain induced by thermal stimulation) suggested that the change of cutaneous pain threshold was not solely dependent on the change of skin temperature. As a psychological reaction, pain seems to have a "6 months" circadian rhythm itself. The reason remains obscure.
In spite of the mechanism of rhythmicity of cutaneous pain threshold is yet unknown, attention should be paid to this phenomenon by the workers in the field of pain research. The question needs further investigation.
No comments:
Post a Comment