BACKGROUND Spasticity is a common and debilitating symptom of multiple sclerosis (MS). Current treatments are effective, but may be difficult to tolerate for many patients. OBJECTIVE To determine if levetiracetam, a second-generation antiepileptic drug, may be useful for the treatment of spasticity in MS. METHODS A retrospective medical record review of patients attending the Multiple Scler...

The effects of pharmacological modulation of adrenergic receptors on colonic motor and sensory function are unclear. We studied 40 healthy volunteers in a single-blind design; 12 received saline, and the remaining 28 received either clonidine, yohimbine, phenylephrine, or ritodrine. A barostat-manometric assembly in the left colon recorded drug effects on fasting and postprandial motor function...

The recently identified Mas-related gene (Mrg) family of G-protein-coupled receptors is expressed almost exclusively in dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons. The expression of one family member, MrgD, is even further confined to IB4+, nonpeptidergic, small-diameter nociceptors. Although the functional consequences of MrgD activation are not known, this expression profile provides intriguing poten...

Chronic visceral pain affects millions of individuals worldwide and remains poorly understood, with current therapeutic options constrained by gastrointestinal adverse effects. Visceral pain is strongly associated with inflammation and distension of the gut. Here we report that the voltage-gated sodium channel subtype NaV1.9 is expressed in half of gut-projecting rodent dorsal root ganglia sens...

The mesolimbic dopamine system comprises neurons in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) andsubstantia nigra (SN), projecting to the ventral striatum. This system was originally described to mediate pleasure and goal-directed movement associated with rewarding stimuli. However, it is now clear that dopamine, although crucial for reward processing, drives not the hedonic experience of reward (“likin...

Cannabinoid receptors (CBR) are located on cholinergic neurons in the brain stem, stomach, and colon. CBR stimulation inhibits motility in rodents. Effects in humans are unclear. Dronabinol (DRO), a nonselective CBR agonist, inhibits colonic motility and sensation. The aim of this study was to compare effects of DRO and placebo (PLA) on colonic motility and sensation in healthy volunteers. Fift...

Neuroimaging has provided important information on how acute and chronic pain is processed in the human brain. The pain experience is now known to be the final product of activity in distributed networks consisting of multiple cortical and subcortical areas. Due to the complex nature of the pain experience, a single cerebral representation of pain does not exist. Instead, pain depends on the co...

Hypomimia which refers to a reduced degree in facial expressiveness is a common sign in Parkinson's disease (PD). The objective of our study was to investigate how hypomimia affects PD patients' facial expression of pain. The facial expressions of 23 idiopathic PD patients in the Off-phase (without dopaminergic medication) and On-phase (after dopaminergic medication intake) and 23 matched contr...

Pain is a multidimensional experience, which includes sensory, cognitive, and affective aspects. Converging lines of evidence indicate that dopaminergic neurotransmission plays an important role in human pain perception. However, the precise effects of dopamine on different aspects of pain perception remain to be elucidated. To address this question, we experimentally decreased dopaminergic neu...

BACKGROUND There is a broad range of evidence on optimism dampening the pain experience, as assessed by subjective self-report. Facial expression conveys supplementary information about an integral part communication and assists psychosocial coping. Nevertheless, effect induced facial activity during has to our knowledge not been examined. METHODS In experiment, 40 healthy participants underwen...