Journal of Pain Research (Nov 2023)
Can Myofascial Trigger Points Involve Nociplastic Pain? A Scoping Review on Animal Models
Abstract
Wiktoria Matuska,1 Jakub Matuska,2 Elżbieta Skorupska,2 Maria Siwek,3 Pablo Herrero,4 Manel M Santafé5 1Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science, University of Life Sciences, Poznań, Poland; 2Department of Physiotherapy, University of Medical Sciences, Poznań, Poland; 3Department of Animal Biotechnology and Genetics, Faculty of Animal Breeding and Biology, University of Science and Technology, Bydgoszcz, Poland; 4Department of Physiatry and Nursing, Faculty of Health Sciences, IIS Aragon, University of Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Spain; 5Unit of Histology and Neurobiology, Department of Basic Medical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Rovira I Virgili University, Reus, SpainCorrespondence: Manel M Santafé, Email [email protected]: Nociplastic pain is a non-specific, regional pain lasting more than three months, characterised by the onset of hypersensitivity, despite no clear evidence of tissue damage. It is a relatively new classified type of pain. As a result, there has not yet been much work describing its precise modelling. The mechanism of its formation needs to be clearly explained. Authors point out that the occurrence of myofascial trigger points (MTrPs) can lead to this type of pain as one possibility. This paper summarises the available literature on modelling nociplastic pain and MTrPs. It complies with studies describing animal model creation and presents the results of performed experiments. The literature search was conducted in December 2022 and included the following databases: PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science. In this scoping review, six studies were included. Two described the creation of animal models of nociplastic pain, one adapted old models to nociplastic pain, and three described the modelling of MTrPs. This is the first paper pointing in the possible direction of detecting and studying the correlation between MTrPs and nociplastic pain in animal models. However, there is currently insufficient evidence to describe MTrPs as nociplastic, as few studies with animal models exist.Keywords: chronic pain, myofascial pain, autonomic nervous system, referred pain, hyperalgesia
