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Fluctuating Experimental Pain Sensitivities across the Menstrual Cycle Are Contingent on Women’s Romantic Relationship Status

We explored the social-signaling hypothesis that variability in exogenous pain sensitivities across the menstrual cycle is moderated by women’s current romantic relationship status and hence the availability of a solicitous social partner for expressing pain behaviors in regular, isochronal ways. In...

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Autores principales: Vigil, Jacob M., Strenth, Chance, Trujillo, Tiffany, Gangestad, Steven W.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3960151/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24647612
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0091993
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author Vigil, Jacob M.
Strenth, Chance
Trujillo, Tiffany
Gangestad, Steven W.
author_facet Vigil, Jacob M.
Strenth, Chance
Trujillo, Tiffany
Gangestad, Steven W.
author_sort Vigil, Jacob M.
collection PubMed
description We explored the social-signaling hypothesis that variability in exogenous pain sensitivities across the menstrual cycle is moderated by women’s current romantic relationship status and hence the availability of a solicitous social partner for expressing pain behaviors in regular, isochronal ways. In two studies, we used the menstrual calendars of healthy women to provide a detailed approximation of the women’s probability of conception based on their current cycle-day, along with relationship status, and cold pressor pain and ischemic pain sensitivities, respectively. In the first study (n = 135; 18–46 yrs., M (age) = 23 yrs., 50% natural cycling), we found that naturally-cycling, pair-bonded women showed a positive correlation between the probability of conception and ischemic pain intensity (r = .45), associations not found for single women or hormonal contraceptive-users. A second study (n = 107; 19–29 yrs., M (age) = 20 yrs., 56% natural cycling) showed a similar association between greater conception risk and higher cold-pressor pain intensity in naturally-cycling, pair-bonded women only (r = .63). The findings show that variability in exogenous pain sensitivities across different fertility phases of the menstrual cycle is contingent on basic elements of women’s social environment and inversely correspond to variability in naturally occurring, perimenstrual symptoms. These findings have wide-ranging implications for: a) standardizing pain measurement protocols; b) understanding basic biopsychosocial pain-related processes; c) addressing clinical pain experiences in women; and d) understanding how pain influences, and is influenced by, social relationships.
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spelling pubmed-39601512014-03-27 Fluctuating Experimental Pain Sensitivities across the Menstrual Cycle Are Contingent on Women’s Romantic Relationship Status Vigil, Jacob M. Strenth, Chance Trujillo, Tiffany Gangestad, Steven W. PLoS One Research Article We explored the social-signaling hypothesis that variability in exogenous pain sensitivities across the menstrual cycle is moderated by women’s current romantic relationship status and hence the availability of a solicitous social partner for expressing pain behaviors in regular, isochronal ways. In two studies, we used the menstrual calendars of healthy women to provide a detailed approximation of the women’s probability of conception based on their current cycle-day, along with relationship status, and cold pressor pain and ischemic pain sensitivities, respectively. In the first study (n = 135; 18–46 yrs., M (age) = 23 yrs., 50% natural cycling), we found that naturally-cycling, pair-bonded women showed a positive correlation between the probability of conception and ischemic pain intensity (r = .45), associations not found for single women or hormonal contraceptive-users. A second study (n = 107; 19–29 yrs., M (age) = 20 yrs., 56% natural cycling) showed a similar association between greater conception risk and higher cold-pressor pain intensity in naturally-cycling, pair-bonded women only (r = .63). The findings show that variability in exogenous pain sensitivities across different fertility phases of the menstrual cycle is contingent on basic elements of women’s social environment and inversely correspond to variability in naturally occurring, perimenstrual symptoms. These findings have wide-ranging implications for: a) standardizing pain measurement protocols; b) understanding basic biopsychosocial pain-related processes; c) addressing clinical pain experiences in women; and d) understanding how pain influences, and is influenced by, social relationships. Public Library of Science 2014-03-19 /pmc/articles/PMC3960151/ /pubmed/24647612 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0091993 Text en © 2014 Vigil et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Vigil, Jacob M.
Strenth, Chance
Trujillo, Tiffany
Gangestad, Steven W.
Fluctuating Experimental Pain Sensitivities across the Menstrual Cycle Are Contingent on Women’s Romantic Relationship Status
title Fluctuating Experimental Pain Sensitivities across the Menstrual Cycle Are Contingent on Women’s Romantic Relationship Status
title_full Fluctuating Experimental Pain Sensitivities across the Menstrual Cycle Are Contingent on Women’s Romantic Relationship Status
title_fullStr Fluctuating Experimental Pain Sensitivities across the Menstrual Cycle Are Contingent on Women’s Romantic Relationship Status
title_full_unstemmed Fluctuating Experimental Pain Sensitivities across the Menstrual Cycle Are Contingent on Women’s Romantic Relationship Status
title_short Fluctuating Experimental Pain Sensitivities across the Menstrual Cycle Are Contingent on Women’s Romantic Relationship Status
title_sort fluctuating experimental pain sensitivities across the menstrual cycle are contingent on women’s romantic relationship status
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3960151/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24647612
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0091993
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