Although common life experience and scientific research both suggest a tight link between pain and sleep loss, the mechanisms by which sleep loss promotes pain are not clear, said Dr. Shiqian Shen, associate professor of anesthesia at Harvard Medical School, clinical director of Mass General Research Institute’s Tele Pain Program, and co-senior author of this study. For this study, Dr. Shen and his team used a mouse model to try to find out why there is a correlation between sleep loss and pain. Researchers found that lack of sleep causes low levels of a neurotransmitter called N-arachidonoyl dopamineTrusted Source (NADA) within an area of the brain called the thalamic reticular nucleusTrusted Source (TRN), resulting in heightened pain sensitivity, medically known as hyperalgesia.
“TRN is an important node to modulate information flowing between the thalamus and the cerebral cortex, both are brain regions of critical importance for the pain experience,” Dr. Shen explained to Medical News Today. “Lack of sleep leads to decreased NADA levels in the TRN, which induces TRN malfunction. TRN dysfunction, through its projections to the thalamus, can promote pain sensitivity,” he said. Past studies show chronic pain can be both a cause and consequenceTrusted Source of insufficient sleep.“It is a vicious circle,” Dr. Medhat Mikhael, a pain management specialist and medical director of the non-operative program at the Spine Health Center at MemorialCare Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, CA, who was not involved in this study, told Medical News Today.
“Lack of sleep will make the pain worse (and) chronic pain can make patients insomniac because of their anxiety, depression, and because they are preoccupied in their mind with their chronic pain. It is a vicious circle of pain, insomnia, insomnia, more pain, pain, insomnia, insomnia, more pain, and so forth.” Dr. Shen and his colleagues believe these findings may be used in the future to help prevent or reduce chronic pain associated with sleep loss. “It provides a framework to examine the comorbid interactions between chronic pain and sleep loss. Additionally, the identification of [a neurotransmitter called N-arachidonoyl dopamineTrusted Source (NADA)] leads to future opportunities in testing this molecule or other similar ones for their potential in alleviating pain induced by sleep loss.
