Parkinson's Disease-related Pains are Not Equal: Clinical, Somatosensory and Cortical Excitability Findings in Individuals With Nociceptive Pain

Chronic pain is a frequent and burdensome nonmotor symptom of Parkinson's disease (PD). PD-related chronic pain can be classified as nociceptive, neuropathic, or nociplastic, the former being the most frequent subtype. However, differences in neurophysiologic profiles between these pain subtypes, and their potential prognostic and therapeutic implications have not been explored yet. This is a cross-sectional study on patients with PD (PwP)-related chronic pain (ie, started with or was aggravated by PD). Subjects were assessed for clinical and pain characteristics through questionnaires and underwent quantitative sensory tests and motor corticospinal excitability (CE) evaluations. Data were then compared between individuals with nociceptive and non-nociceptive (ie, neuropathic or nociplastic) pains. Thirty-five patients were included (51.4% male, 55.7 ± 11.0 years old), 20 of which had nociceptive pain. Patients with nociceptive PD-related pain had lower warm detection threshold (WDT, 33.34 ± 1.39 vs 34.34 ± 1.72, P = .019) and mechanical detection threshold (MDT, 2.55 ± 1.54 vs 3.86 ± .97, P = .007) compared to those with non-nociceptive pains. They also presented a higher proportion of low rest motor threshold values than the non-nociceptive pain ones (64.7% vs 26.6%, P = .048). In non-nociceptive pain patients, there was a negative correlation between WDT and non-motor symptoms scores (r = -.612, P = .045) and a positive correlation between MDT and average pain intensity (r = .629, P = .038), along with neuropathic pain symptom scores (r = .604, P = .049). It is possible to conclude that PD-related chronic pain subtypes have distinctive somatosensory and CE profiles. These preliminary data may help better frame previous contradictory findings in PwP and may have implications for future trial designs aiming at developing individually-tailored therapies. PERSPECTIVE: This work showed that PwP-related nociceptive chronic pain may have distinctive somatosensory and CE profiles than those with non-nociceptive pain subtypes. These data may help shed light on previous contradictory findings in PwP and guide future trials aiming at developing individually-tailored management strategies.