Opportunities and challenges of pain-related myocardial ischemia-reperfusion injury
Jiang W, Yin Y, Gu X, Zhang Z, Ma H · Frontiers in Physiology · 2022 September 02
DOI 10.3389/fphys.2022.900664
Objective
To investigate the role of pain in myocardial ischemia-reperfusion injury and summarize the animal and pain models and potential mechanisms involved.
Conclusions
The review concludes that acute pain protects against myocardial ischemia-reperfusion injury, whereas chronic pain aggravates cardiac ischemia-reperfusion injury, potentially through peripheral pain signals acting on the cardiac autonomic nervous system and altering autonomic innervation.
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Insights
Acute pain may protect the heart during restored blood flow, whereas chronic pain may worsen injury by altering autonomic nervous system signalling.
This review examined evidence linking pain with heart injury caused by interrupted and restored blood flow. It compared experimental pain and animal models used to investigate these effects, including approaches designed to produce short-term or persistent pain alongside cardiac blood-flow injury.
The authors concluded that short-term pain appears to reduce heart damage during restored blood flow, while persistent pain appears to intensify it. They propose that pain signals travel from peripheral tissues to the cardiac autonomic nervous system, changing nerve regulation of the heart and thereby influencing cardiac function during injury.
