Small Dana M, Apkarian Vania A
The John B Pierce Laboratory, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA Department of Surgery, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA Department of Physiology, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, USA Anesthesia, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, USA Neuroscience Institute, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, USA.
Pain. 2006 Jan;120(1-2):124-130. doi: 10.1016/j.pain.2005.10.021. Epub 2005 Dec 19.
There is overlap between brain regions involved in taste and pain perception, and cortical injuries may lead to increases as well as decreases in sensitivity to taste. Recently it was shown that chronic back pain (CBP) is associated with a specific pattern of brain atrophy. Since CBP is characterized by increased sensitivity to pain, we reasoned that the sense of taste might also be enhanced in CBP. Detection and recognition thresholds were established for a sour taste and ratings of both suprathreshold taste intensity and pleasantness-unpleasantness perception were collected for sweet, sour, salty and bitter stimuli in 11 CBP patients and 11 matched control subjects. As a control, ratings were also collected for visual assessment of degree of grayness. There was no difference between CBP and control subjects for visual grayness rating. On the other hand, CBP patients in comparison to control subjects rated gustatory stimuli as significantly more intense but no more or less pleasant and showed a trend towards a lower detection threshold (i.e. increased sensitivity). The selectivity of the taste disturbance suggests interaction between pain and taste at specific brain sites and provides further evidence that CBP involves specific brain abnormalities.
参与味觉和疼痛感知的脑区存在重叠，皮层损伤可能导致味觉敏感度增加或降低。最近有研究表明，慢性背痛（CBP）与特定的脑萎缩模式有关。由于CBP的特征是对疼痛的敏感度增加，我们推测CBP患者的味觉可能也会增强。我们确定了11名CBP患者和11名匹配的对照受试者对酸味的检测和识别阈值，并收集了他们对甜、酸、咸和苦味刺激的阈上味觉强度评分以及愉悦-不愉悦感知评分。作为对照，我们还收集了对灰度视觉评估的评分。CBP患者和对照受试者在视觉灰度评分上没有差异。另一方面，与对照受试者相比，CBP患者对味觉刺激的评分明显更高，但愉悦程度没有差异，并且有检测阈值降低的趋势（即敏感度增加）。味觉障碍的选择性表明疼痛和味觉在特定脑区存在相互作用，并进一步证明CBP涉及特定的脑异常。
