Resilience, pain, and the brain: Relationships differ by sociodemographics

Abstract

Chronic musculoskeletal (MSK) pain is disabling to individuals and burdensome to society. A relationship between telomere length and resilience was reported in individuals with consideration for chronic pain intensity. While chronic pain associates with brain changes, little is known regarding the neurobiological interface of resilience. In a group of individuals with chronic MSK pain, we examined the relationships between a previously investigated resilience index, clinical pain and functioning measures, and pain-related brain structures, with consideration for sex and ethnicity/race. A cross-sectional analysis of 166 non-Hispanic Black and non-Hispanic White adults, 45-85 years of age with pain ≥ 1 body site (s) over the past 3 months was completed. Measures of clinical pain and functioning, biobehavioral and psychosocial resilience, and structural MRI were completed. Our findings indicate higher levels of resilience associate with lower levels of clinical pain and functional limitations. Significant associations between resilience, ethnicity/race, and/or sex, and pain-related brain gray matter structure were demonstrated in the right amygdaloid complex, bilateral thalamus, and postcentral gyrus. Our findings provide compelling evidence that in order to decipher the neurobiological code of chronic pain and related protective factors, it

Vulnerable Dispositional Traits and Chronic Pain: Predisposing but not Predetermining

“…Here, individuals with high positive emotionality and low negative emotionality were further characterized by higher cognitive functioning than the other group. Recently, resilience was associated with amygdala volume in the same UPLOAD2 study [70]. Psychological interventions that incorporate positive affect alongside negative affect have already been proven to be more effective than the interventions focusing exclusively on negative affect [71][72][73][74][75].…”

A scoping review on the methods of assessment and role of resilience on function and movement-evoked pain when experiencing a musculoskeletal injury

“…“Multisystem resilience” has been proposed to involve the assessment of a number of aspects which influence health including psychology, function and social history [ 57 ]. This review identified a study [ 58 ] that developed a resilience index, which included behavioural and psychosocial items to assess pain-related protective factors such as social support, active coping, positive and negative affect, waist-to-hip measures and tobacco use. The combined scores of these assessments gave a reflection of resilience and allowed stratification of participants into high and low resilience groups.…”

Sepsis and Cognitive Assessment

“…Although race or ethnicity were reported in five of the 18 studies, no study considered these variables relative to the cognitive trajectory. Today, we appreciate how race and ethnicity are surrogates for appreciating health disparities’ contribution to neurobiological responses [ 50 ]. Social determinants of health, including systemic racism experienced by many communities of color, are known to have negative ramifications on health outcomes and recovery [ 51 , 52 , 53 ].…”