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Embodied pain in fibromyalgia: Disturbed somatorepresentations and increased plasticity of the body schema

Fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) is a highly prevalent, chronic musculoskeletal condition characterized by widespread pain and evoked pain at tender points. This study evaluated various aspects of body awareness in a sample of 14 women with FMS and 13 healthy controls, such as plasticity of the body sche...

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Autores principales: Martínez, Endika, Aira, Zigor, Buesa, Itsaso, Aizpurua, Ibane, Rada, Diego, Azkue, Jon Jatsu
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5889164/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29624596
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0194534
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author Martínez, Endika
Aira, Zigor
Buesa, Itsaso
Aizpurua, Ibane
Rada, Diego
Azkue, Jon Jatsu
author_facet Martínez, Endika
Aira, Zigor
Buesa, Itsaso
Aizpurua, Ibane
Rada, Diego
Azkue, Jon Jatsu
author_sort Martínez, Endika
collection PubMed
description Fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) is a highly prevalent, chronic musculoskeletal condition characterized by widespread pain and evoked pain at tender points. This study evaluated various aspects of body awareness in a sample of 14 women with FMS and 13 healthy controls, such as plasticity of the body schema, body esteem, and interoceptive awareness. To this end, the Rubber Hand Illusion (RHI), the Body Esteem Scale (BES), and the Body Perception Questionnaire (BPQ) were used, respectively. Consistent with increased plasticity of the body schema, FMS patients scored higher, with large or very large effect sizes, across all three domains evaluated in the RHI paradigm, namely proprioceptive drift and perceived ownership and motor control over the rubber hand. Scores on all items addressed by the BES were consistently lower among FMS subjects (2.52, SEM .19 vs 3.89, SEM .16, respectively, p < .01, Cohen’s d = .38-.66). In the FMS sample, BES scores assigned to most painful regions also were lower than those assigned to the remaining body sites (1.58, SEM .19 vs 2.87, SEM .18, respectively, p < .01). Significantly higher scores (p < .01, Cohen’s d = .51-.87) were found in the FMS sample across awareness (3.57 SEM .15 vs 1.87 SEM .11), stress response (3.76 SEM .11 vs 1.78 SEM .11), autonomic nervous system reactivity (2.59 SEM .17 vs 1.35 SEM .07), and stress style 2 (2.73 SEM .27 vs 1.13 SEM .04) subscales of the BPQ. Intensity of ongoing clinical pain was found to be strongly correlated with interoceptive awareness (r = .75, p = .002). The results suggest a disturbed embodiment in FMS, characterized by instability of the body schema, negatively biased cognitions regarding one’s own body, and increased vigilance to internal bodily cues. These manifestations may be interpreted as related with the inability of incoming sensory inputs to adequately update negatively biased off-line somatorepresentations stored as long-term memory.
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spelling pubmed-58891642018-04-20 Embodied pain in fibromyalgia: Disturbed somatorepresentations and increased plasticity of the body schema Martínez, Endika Aira, Zigor Buesa, Itsaso Aizpurua, Ibane Rada, Diego Azkue, Jon Jatsu PLoS One Research Article Fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) is a highly prevalent, chronic musculoskeletal condition characterized by widespread pain and evoked pain at tender points. This study evaluated various aspects of body awareness in a sample of 14 women with FMS and 13 healthy controls, such as plasticity of the body schema, body esteem, and interoceptive awareness. To this end, the Rubber Hand Illusion (RHI), the Body Esteem Scale (BES), and the Body Perception Questionnaire (BPQ) were used, respectively. Consistent with increased plasticity of the body schema, FMS patients scored higher, with large or very large effect sizes, across all three domains evaluated in the RHI paradigm, namely proprioceptive drift and perceived ownership and motor control over the rubber hand. Scores on all items addressed by the BES were consistently lower among FMS subjects (2.52, SEM .19 vs 3.89, SEM .16, respectively, p < .01, Cohen’s d = .38-.66). In the FMS sample, BES scores assigned to most painful regions also were lower than those assigned to the remaining body sites (1.58, SEM .19 vs 2.87, SEM .18, respectively, p < .01). Significantly higher scores (p < .01, Cohen’s d = .51-.87) were found in the FMS sample across awareness (3.57 SEM .15 vs 1.87 SEM .11), stress response (3.76 SEM .11 vs 1.78 SEM .11), autonomic nervous system reactivity (2.59 SEM .17 vs 1.35 SEM .07), and stress style 2 (2.73 SEM .27 vs 1.13 SEM .04) subscales of the BPQ. Intensity of ongoing clinical pain was found to be strongly correlated with interoceptive awareness (r = .75, p = .002). The results suggest a disturbed embodiment in FMS, characterized by instability of the body schema, negatively biased cognitions regarding one’s own body, and increased vigilance to internal bodily cues. These manifestations may be interpreted as related with the inability of incoming sensory inputs to adequately update negatively biased off-line somatorepresentations stored as long-term memory. Public Library of Science 2018-04-06 /pmc/articles/PMC5889164/ /pubmed/29624596 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0194534 Text en © 2018 Martínez 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 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Martínez, Endika
Aira, Zigor
Buesa, Itsaso
Aizpurua, Ibane
Rada, Diego
Azkue, Jon Jatsu
Embodied pain in fibromyalgia: Disturbed somatorepresentations and increased plasticity of the body schema
title Embodied pain in fibromyalgia: Disturbed somatorepresentations and increased plasticity of the body schema
title_full Embodied pain in fibromyalgia: Disturbed somatorepresentations and increased plasticity of the body schema
title_fullStr Embodied pain in fibromyalgia: Disturbed somatorepresentations and increased plasticity of the body schema
title_full_unstemmed Embodied pain in fibromyalgia: Disturbed somatorepresentations and increased plasticity of the body schema
title_short Embodied pain in fibromyalgia: Disturbed somatorepresentations and increased plasticity of the body schema
title_sort embodied pain in fibromyalgia: disturbed somatorepresentations and increased plasticity of the body schema
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5889164/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29624596
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0194534
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