This study was undertaken to determine whether written emotional disclosure oftrauma impacted capsaicin induced pain immediately after writing and at a one-monthfollow-up, and the extent to which a lifetime history of trauma alters pain under neutralconditions. Three experiments were conducted to answer these questions. In Experiment1 participants were randomly assigned to write about either a neutral or a trauma topic,and they concurrently completed the capsaicin test. In Experiment 2, the capsaicin testwas administered to trauma history and no trauma history participants and pain ratingsand secondary hyperalgesia were recorded under neutral conditions. In Experiment 3,participants wrote for three days and completed the radiant heat test before writing onday 1 and after writing on day 3. They also completed the capsaicin test on either day 4or at a one-month follow-up (day 30). Taken together, these studies had severalimportant results. First, radiant heat withdrawal latencies, ratings of pain intensity andunpleasantness, and area of secondary hyperalgesia were all significantly increased whenparticipants had a history of traumatic experiences. This is evidence that trauma history is sufficient to alter pain regulatory mechanisms, and this may be attributable to thechronic negative affective state induced by trauma history and sensitization of sharedcircuits involved in both pain and emotion. Furthermore, our findings suggest thatwritten emotional disclosure may lead to long-term changes in pain modulatorypathways that regulate central sensitization, without altering systems that regulatespontaneous pain.
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