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Inserm researchers have demonstrated through an experiment that pain is also governed by an internal clock. And its intensity is at its highest in the middle of the night.
Like many bodily functions (sleep, temperature, blood pressure, etc.), the intensity of pain is controlled by the internal circadian clock. In any case, this is what a team of Inserm researchers from the Lyon Neuroscience Research Center has just discovered. Oscillating over 24 hours, the pain would experience a peak between 3 and 4 am, as well as a drop in the afternoon.
An experiment with significant results conducted on 12 people
In order to reach these conclusions, the researchers studied twelve young adults in the laboratory under conditions of temporal isolation and constant routine. Kept awake for 34 hours, they were exposed to no signal, no timetable, no fixed meal and no activity/rest rhythm.
In this situation, a source of heat that became painful was exposed every two hours on their forearm. The participants then had to quantify the perception of pain.
The results“very homogeneous” sAccording to Claude Gronfier, demonstrate a greater sensitivity to pain in the middle of the night, but also an increased sensitivity due to sleep debt.
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A biological rhythm that suggests therapeutic possibilities
“We now know that pain also has its rhythm, linked to the internal clock and not to the environment” confirms Claude Gronfier chronobiologist and neurobiologist, researcher at the Lyon Neuroscience Research Center and author of this study. “On the other hand, we do not yet know why we would be more sensitive to pain in the middle of the night. The first hypothesis is that humans and animals, more vulnerable at night and inhibited by the effects of sleep, possess this rhythm in order to be awakened quickly in the event of painful contact and to avoid a vital threat. explains the researcher.
As for the uses that could be made of this new knowledge, they are undoubtedly numerous: “This result goes in the direction studied by chronobiology and chronotherapy, which already use the rhythm of patients in depression or even cancer. The study of the rhythm of the pain would make it possible to adjust the timing to obtain the least possible side effects. But also to adjust medication if the patient is experiencing disturbed sleep, knowing that lack of sleep exacerbates pain” he contemplates.