Clinical Phenotypes Supporting the Relationship Between Sleep Disturbance and Impairment of Placebo Effects

Sleep-processes especially during paradoxical sleep seem to influence the relationship between expectations of relief and placebo analgesia. Together with Colloca’s lab team, Dr. Wang will show how sleep problems affect placebo analgesia in chronic pain patients. Colloca’s lab team studied over 800 Temporomandibular disorder (TMD) patients and healthy controls (HC) with the purpose to determine how sleep quality and insomnia severity using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and the Insomnia Severity Index (INSI). Good versus poor sleepers controlling for age have a distinct trend for sleep placebo analgesia. In the TMD cohort, good sleepers experienced greater experimental placebo effects than poor sleep sleepers. The lack of these associations in the HC cohort confirms that sleep problems observed in TMD only emphasizes the relevance of sleep for pain modulation specifically, placebo effects. Moreover, Dr. Wang will present findings on sleep impairment and placebo effects in men versus women, across distinct adulthood ages. Finally, the psychological mechanisms underlying sleep and pain modulation will be discussed.