Abstract
A total of 224 chronic pain somatoform disorder patients without obvious pathophysiology or psychopathology were found to have colder hands than nonpatients. A paradoxical temperature increase (PTI) in response to a cognitive stressor (mental arithmetic) was noted in a subset of these chronic pain patients. Patients were defined as “PTI” responders if, during cognitive stress, an increase in digital temperature occurred over a prior eyes closed resting condition. It was found that 49.4% of males and 42.6% of females in a total sample of 224 patients demonstrated PTI. The PTI patients had significantly colder hands than non-PTI patients prior to stress. A concurrent SCL measure of sympathetic activation found no difference between the PTI and non-PTI groups either at baseline or during cognitive stress. It appears from this data that PTI is specific to the peripheral vascular system of these patients and may be a marker of psychophysiological dissociation or trauma blocked from consciousness.
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Wickramasekera, I.E., Kolm, P., Pope, A. et al. Observation of a Paradoxical Temperature Increase During Cognitive Stress in Some Chronic Pain Patients. Appl Psychophysiol Biofeedback 23, 233–241 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022261615117
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022261615117