ABSTRACT
From the phenomenological point of view, pain can be classified into psychological-pain and physical-pain. Emerging evidence has shown that the psychological- and physical-pain recruit overlapping neural activity in regions associated with the affective component of pain, and share some common pain circuits, e.g., the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and the anterior insula (AI) play important roles in both psychological- and physical-pain. Therefore, understanding the way in which psychological- and physical-pain demonstrate either similarity or discrepancy may provide new insights into the relationship between the two types of experiences and potential targets for treating psychological suffering. This review summarizes research progress that has been obtained through experiments conducted in human and nonhuman animals to discuss the similarity, discrepancy and interaction between psychological- and physical-pain. The important next steps, e.g., uncovering the mechanisms underlying the overlap of psychological- and physical-pain; and whether chronic psychological-pain shapes brain plasticity as physical-pain does, are also discussed.
ABSTRACT
Objective To explore the relationship between the cardiac function of pregnant women with cardiac disease and the level of N -terminal pro -B -type natriuretic peptide (NT -pro -BNP).Methods A total of 74 pregnant women with cardiac disease and 80 healthy pregnant women were enrolled in the study and the NT -pro -BNP was detected and compared.The concentrations of NT -pro -BNP in different trimester were compared among the healthy pregnant women, and the correlation between the cardiac function of pregnant women with cardiac disease and the level of NT -pro -BNP were analyzed.Results The median of concentrations of plasma NT -pro -BNP in pregnant women with cardiac disease was 352.50 pg/mL,which was significantly higher than that in healthy pregnant women 58.00 pg/mL(P <0.01 ).The cardiac function was positively correlated with the level of NT -pro -BNP (P <0.01 ).The concentration of plasma NT -pro -BNP during the late trimester(49.00 pg/mL)was significantly higher than that of the early trimester(49.00 pg/mL) among the healthy pregnant women (P <0.01 ).Conclusion It is of great clinical value for the concentration of plasma NT-pro -BNP in evaluating the cardiac function of pregnant women with cardiac disease,and the pregnancy may influence the cardiac function.