The following is a summary of the “Effect of Observing High or Low Pain on the Development of Central Sensitization,” published in the January 2023 issue of Pain Management by Torta, et al.
If experiencing mechanical sensitivities to pain is heightened by witnessing others in severe agony is unknown. For this study, we used high-frequency electrical stimulation (HFS) to increase the skin’s response to a pinprick test in otherwise healthy human subjects. Participants were split into 2 groups before HFS, with 1 watching a model express and reporting reduced pain scores (the control condition) and the other watching a model express and reporting higher pain scores.
On the basis of a previous pilot/observational study, we chose these 2 videos to analyze further. We examined the effects of fear and empathy on the growth of hypersensitivity and the varying degrees of intensity reported throughout the HFS process. Pain ratings during HFS were generally higher in the high-pain group. High pain sufferers reported greater hypersensitivity but neither more unpleasantness nor larger affected areas.
Their findings show that witnessing another person’s increased expression of pain during HFS increases one’s pain ratings during HFS and may weakly facilitate the development of secondary mechanical hypersensitivity, though this latter conclusion needs replication. Seeing someone else in severe pain can increase your hypersensitivity to touch and has a small effect on the hypersensitivity itself (if any). They still need to learn how much of a factor fear is.
Source: sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1526590022004072
