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128 active trials for Fibromyalgia

Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation of Relief of Fibromyalgia Pain

There are currently several points concerning rTMS for pain relief that have a huge impact in the practical application of rTMS in clinical practice, but which have not been approached by previous studies. Also, an even more important issue is the frequency of the sessions in each treatment protocol. The idea of performing stimulation in chronic pain patients on a consecutive daily basis for long-term treatments seem unrealistic and potentially costly. However, it has been reported in animals, healthy subjects and FM patients that the analgesic effects of rTMS can outlast the stimulation session for several minutes and even days. This has led to the proposal that pain treatment with rTMS could be performed in consecutive daily induction sessions, followed by spaced (weekly, fortnightly and even monthly) maintenance sessions. This approach is similar to what is performed routinely in patients with major depression treated by rTMS to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and has successfully been tested in FM patients in a single- center study. Should this approach prove effective in larger prospective multicentric studies, rTMS could enter the armamentarium of non-invasive, non- pharmacological, low-adverse event therapeutic options to relieve fibromyalgia- related pain and associate symptoms. Hence, our aim is to conduct a multicentric international clinical trial on the influence of rTMS in the control of pain in a consecutive adaptive trial design where real rTMS of two different doses (1500 vs 3000 pulses per session) will be studied. Stimulations will be performed in a clinical practice-friendly approach, where daily maintenance sessions will be followed by weekly, and fortnightly stimulation sessions. There have been very scarce adaptive trials in the pain and non-invasive stimulation fields. This methodological approach allows for the use of lower number of patients in consecutive trials and, among other qualities, it allows for the imputation of data from the first trial into the second one, thus decreasing the duration of the studies and the number of participants.

Start: April 2019
Psychobiological Mechanisms Underlying Chronic Pain

Pain is a powerful motivator of behavior and it is more than the perception of nociceptive input. It is a complex experience that comprises different components: sensory discriminative, emotional-motivational and cognitive components. In chronic pain, a negative hedonic shift has been proposed that is characterized by disproportionally increased emotional-motivational compared to sensory-discriminative pain components. Such a negative hedonic shift is mirrored in a high comorbidity of chronic pain with affective disorders like depression and anxiety. However, the neurobiological mechanisms underlying such a negative hedonic shift i remain elusive. Animal work suggests an involvement of neuroinflammation, caused by chronic pain, which in turn is related to impaired release of the neurotransmitter dopamine. In line with this observation, impaired dopamine functioning has been described in chronic pain. Importantly, dopamine acts also as a neuromodulator, regulating functional connectivity between brain regions. Therefore, dysfunctional dopamine in chronic pain, possibly caused by neuroinflammation, might lead to altered functional connectivity. Correspondingly, altered functional connectivity in fronto-striatal brain networks has been shown to be predictive of transition from subacute to chronic pain. The aim of this study is to investigate the psychobiological mechanisms underlying the negative hedonic shift in chronic pain with a focus on the causal role of neuroinflammation (substudy 1) and the role of dopamine (substudy 2) in functional connectivity of fronto-striatal brain networks and their relation to heightened emotional-motivational pain processing.

Start: January 2021
FIbromyalgia anD GenetIcs Subgroups (FIDGIS)

Fibromyalgia syndrome (FS) is characterized by widespread pain and affect 0.5 to 5 % of the general population, with a higher prevalence in women. Recognized as disease by World Health Organization since 1992, FS concern 1.2 to 2 million of French people and his etiology need to be clarified. This affection is characterized by a higher sensitivity to nociceptive stimulus, articular and muscular pain and associated to: fatigue, headache, sleep disorders, depression and irritated bowel syndrome. The presentation of this symptoms varied according to the patient with a heterogeneity of the clinical, physical, social and psychologic conditions and of the therapeutic responses. Faced to the heterogeneity of FS, various hypotheses about the development mechanisms exist. Central sensitization could be one of the key mechanisms of FS, it is described as a loss of the natural balance between the transmission of a painful stimulus to the central nervous system and pain-inhibiting mechanisms, which results in permanent or chronic pain. Moreover, work on the familial character of FS suggests that a genetic component may be involved in its development, but the identification of a genetic determinant is difficult given the multifactorial nature and complexity of FS. The objective of this study is to characterize the predispositions of central sensitization and genetics in patients with FS compared to a control group, matched in age, sex and menopausal status.

Start: November 2020