Include psychosocial factors in the search for a biomarker for chronic pain: study

A new study from Montreal provides a reminder that in the quest for a biomarker for chronic pain, don’t forget the psychosocial factors. The findings from McGill University researchers provide more support for taking a holistic approach when diagnosing and managing chronic pain, particularly patient-reported pain.“Our research shows that pain can be detected and understood when we look at the whole person,” said Etienne Vachon-Presseau, a member of McGill University’s Alan Edwards Centre for Research on Pain and an associate professor in the faculty of dental medicine and oral health sciences. “Patients, health-care providers and policymakers will benefit by adopting a more holistic approach to assessing chronic pain.”The study used machine learning to examine U.K. Biobank data from 523,000 participants. The data pertained to 35 medical conditions associated with pain (i.e., rheumatoid arthritis, gout) or self-reported pain (i.e., back pain or knee pain). It included brain imaging, bone imaging, blood immunoassays and genetics. While the machine learning analysis of the data was accurate in predicting medical conditions associated with chronic pain, it was not as successful predicting self-reported pain. When the data was combined with psychosocial factors, such as mental health, sleep and stress, there was more success in predicting chronic pain.“Biological data tells us what’s wrong, but not how something feels,” said Vachon-Presseau in a McGill University press release. “Sleep problems, stress and mood can all influence how the brain processes pain, shaping how severe it feels and how much it interferes with daily life.” Research into biomarkers for chronic pain has expanded with the hope of using them to provide personalized medicine. These findings challenge the idea that a biomarker can be found that will predict the experience of pain reported by patients. A similar problem exists with the search for a biomarker for depression, the researchers note. Many self-reported pain conditions are heterogeneous, such as spine arthritis, sciatica and ankylosing spondylitis, further limiting the ability to pinpoint a biomarker. “These findings emphasize that overlooking the role of psychosocial factors would severely constrain our capacity to identify future biomarkers that would generalize across individuals,” the researchers write.The paper was published in Nature Human Behaviour.

Include psychosocial factors in the search for a biomarker for chronic pain: study

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