Pain modulation and gender differences

The thesis Pain modulation and gender differences consist of two parts; first, an introduction to the study which provides detailed theoretical information on the topic in a larger context, and second, the article Inhibition of electrically induced Tibialis anterior pain is inhibited by painful and non painful conditioning which give an thorough presentation of methodology and results. The thesis describes an experimental pain study, conducted at the National institute of Occupational health in Oslo. The experiment was designed to test the pain inhibitory system in men and women, focusing on the following questions: - Is electrically induced muscle pain inhibited by a conditioning heat pain stimulus? - Do women show signs of reduced inhibition compared to men? A conditioned pain modulation (CPM) model was used in the experiment, where the experimental setup included both a painful and a non painful session. A total of 40 healthy volunteers (50% women) participated. Electrical muscle pain was induced in Tibialis anterior and heat pain was induced on the opposite forearm. The inhibitory effect was measured from the participants' subjective responses using a visual analogue scale (VAS). Statistical analyses were performed in SPSS by the use of independent samples t-test and RM ANOVA respectively. The analyses showed no CPM effect, but revealed that painful and non-painful conditioning reduced the pain experience among both women and men. The thesis discusses several methodological concerns related to the results and what consequences this might have had for gender differences in previous CPM studies. Finally, the conclusion emphasize the importance of attention in CPM studies and the significance of considering sex hormones when studying gender differences in pain

Are changes in workplace bullying status related to changes in salivary cortisol?:A longitudinal study among Danish employees

Abstract in Undetermined This study aims to investigate whether incident workplace bullying and its dicontinuance is related to subsequent change in morning and evening saliva cortisol concentrations

Exposure to workplace bullying and risk of depression

OBJECTIVE: We examined the prospective association between self-labeled and witness-reported bullying and the risk of newly onset of depression. METHODS: Employees were recruited from two cohorts of 3196 and 2002 employees, respectively. Participants received a questionnaire at baseline in 2006 to 2007 with follow-up in 2008 to 2009 and 2011. New cases of depression were diagnosed in the follow-up using Schedules for Clinical Assessment in Neuropsychiatry interviews and the Major Depression Inventory questionnaire. RESULTS: We identified 147 new cases of depression. The odds ratio for newly onset depression among participants reporting bullying occasionally was 2.17 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.11 to 4.23) and among frequently bullied 9.63 (95% CI: 3.42 to 27.1). There was no association between percentage witnessing bullying and newly onset depression. CONCLUSIONS: Frequent self-labeled bullying predicts development of depression but a work environment with high proportion of employees witnessing bullying does not