The Protective Role of Testosterone and Underlying Sex-Specific Mechanisms in Chronic Muscle Pain

Dr Kathleen Sluka from the University of Iowa will present recent work on the role of sex hormones in exercise-induced pain and exercise-induced analgesia. This presentation will show the differences in development of chronic widespread pain in animal models, how testosterone and activation of androgen receptors protects against development of chronic pain, and the underlying sex-specific mechanisms in the central nervous system, particularly the RVM. We will further show that resistance training exercise, but not aerobic exercise, increase testosterone to produce analgesia through activation of androgen receptors. We will present these results, the underlying mechanisms by how testosterone induces analgesia in males and with resistance training and provide the clinical implications for these findings.