Division of Brain, Imaging and Behaviour - Systems Neuroscience, Toronto Western Research Institute, University Health Network, Toronto, Canada Institute of Medical Science, University of Toronto, Canada Department of Surgery, University of Toronto, Canada.
Pain. 2010 Nov;151(2):323-329. doi: 10.1016/j.pain.2010.06.026. Epub 2010 Aug 11.
Brief noxious heat evokes more intense pain in women than in men; however, sex differences in the intensity of pain sensations evoked in hairy and glabrous skins are not clearly understood. Glabrous skin putatively lacks the type of A-delta nociceptors that underlie heat-evoked sharp sensation. Therefore, we assessed whether noxious heat-evoked pain qualities differed for hairy and glabrous skins and whether sex differences exist in these evoked pains. We applied a prolonged (30s) ramped noxious heat stimulus to the dorsal and ventral aspects of the feet of 16 males and 16 females. Stimuli were calibrated in each subject to evoke a peak pain magnitude of 50/100. Subjects provided continuous online ratings of pain, annoyance, burning, sharp, stinging and cutting sensations in separate runs. The results indicate that both sex and skin type impact noxious heat-evoked sensations. Specifically, ratings of sharp sensations and annoyance evoked in hairy skin were significantly more intense in women than in men. Sharp, stinging and cutting sensations were evoked in glabrous skin, but the magnitude of these sensations was greater in hairy skin than glabrous skin; an effect only in females. Also, there was no sex difference in sharp sensation and annoyance in glabrous skin. These findings suggest that sharp sensations are evoked more prominently in hairy than in glabrous skin of women and that sharp sensations and annoyance play a prominent role in mediating aspects of pain-evoked from hairy skin in women.
短暂的有害热刺激会引起女性比男性更强烈的疼痛；然而，毛发和无毛发皮肤中引起的疼痛感觉强度的性别差异尚不清楚。无毛发皮肤据称缺乏潜在的热诱发锐痛的 A 型伤害感受器。因此，我们评估了有害热诱发疼痛在毛发和无毛发皮肤之间是否存在差异，以及这些诱发疼痛是否存在性别差异。我们将延长（30 秒）的有害热刺激应用于 16 名男性和 16 名女性的足部背侧和腹侧。在每个受试者中校准刺激以引起 50/100 的峰值疼痛强度。受试者在单独的运行中提供持续的在线疼痛、烦恼、灼热、尖锐、刺痛和切割感觉的评分。结果表明，性别和皮肤类型都影响有害热诱发的感觉。具体而言，毛发皮肤中尖锐感觉和烦恼的评分在女性中明显高于男性。无毛发皮肤中会引起尖锐、刺痛和切割感觉，但这些感觉的强度在毛发皮肤中大于无毛发皮肤；这种影响仅见于女性。此外，无毛发皮肤中的尖锐感觉和烦恼在性别之间没有差异。这些发现表明，在女性的毛发皮肤中比在无毛发皮肤中更明显地诱发尖锐感觉，并且尖锐感觉和烦恼在介导来自女性毛发皮肤的疼痛方面起着重要作用。
