Summary: People with chronic pain in multiple parts of the body have a higher risk of developing dementia and accelerated cognitive decline.
Source: chinese academy of sciences
A research team led by Dr. TU Yiheng from the Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences found that people with chronic pain in multiple parts of the body had a higher risk of dementia and experienced more cognitive decline. broad and faster, including memory, executive function, learning and attention.
The study was published online in PNAS February 20.
Chronic multisite pain, where pain is felt in multiple anatomical locations, affects nearly half of patients with chronic pain and has been shown to put a greater strain on patients’ overall health. However, it was unclear whether people with chronic multisite pain suffered from worsened neurocognitive abnormalities.
In this study, after analyzing the records of 354,943 people from the UK Biobank cohort, researchers found that the risk of neurocognitive abnormality increased with each additional site of pain and was mediated by hippocampal atrophy, part of the brain responsible for memory.
Since hippocampal volume decreases with age, the researchers equated the magnitude of the effect of hippocampal atrophy in patients with chronic multisite pain to the effect of aging in healthy people with an average age of 60 years.
“Chronic multisite pain can lead to up to eight years of accelerated hippocampal aging, an effect that may underlie a range of cognitive loads,” said study corresponding author Dr. TU.
The study provides a quantitative understanding of the impact of chronic pain on cognitive function and dementia risk, thereby laying an important foundation for future research into the relationship between chronic pain and cognitive impairment.
It also highlights the excessive burden of chronic multisite pain on patients’ cognition and brains, and the need to address the overlapping nature of pain conditions in basic research and clinical studies.
Funding: This study was supported by the STI2030-Major Projects program, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and the CAS Institute of Psychology Science Foundation, among other sources.
About this news about pain and dementia research
Author: TU Yiheng
Source: chinese academy of sciences
Contact: TU Yiheng – Chinese Academy of Sciences
Picture: Image is in public domain
Original research: Access closed.
“Elevated dementia risk, cognitive decline, and hippocampal atrophy in chronic multisite pain” by TU Yiheng et al. PNAS
Abstract
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High risk of dementia, cognitive decline and hippocampal atrophy in chronic multisite pain
Numerous studies have investigated the impacts of common types of chronic pain (CP) on patients’ cognitive function and found CP to be associated with later dementia. More recently, it is increasingly recognized that CP conditions frequently coexist at multiple body sites and can further burden the overall health of patients.
However, whether and how multisite CP (MCP) contributes to an increased risk of dementia, compared to single site CP (SCP) and no pain (PF), remains largely unclear.
In the present study, using the UK Biobank cohort, we first investigated the risk of dementia in individuals (n=354,943) with different numbers of coexisting CP sites using proportional hazards regression models of Cox. We then applied generalized additive models to determine whether MCP causes excessive deterioration in participants’ cognition and brain structure (n = 19,116).
We found that people with MCP were associated with a significantly higher risk of dementia, broader and more rapid cognitive impairment, and more hippocampal atrophy than people with PF and those with SCP. .
Moreover, the adverse effects of MCP on dementia risk and hippocampal volume worsened with the number of coexisting CP sites. Mediation analyzes further revealed that the decline in fluid intelligence in MCP individuals was partially mediated by hippocampal atrophy.
Our results suggest that cognitive decline and hippocampal atrophy interact biologically and may underlie the increased risk of dementia associated with MCP.