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Response of experimental pain to analgesic drugs: I. Morphine, aspirin, and placebo
Author(s) -
Wolff B. Berthold,
Kantor Thomas G.,
Jarvik Murray E.,
Laska Eugene
Publication year - 1966
Publication title -
clinical pharmacology and therapeutics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.941
H-Index - 188
eISSN - 1532-6535
pISSN - 0009-9236
DOI - 10.1002/cpt196672224
Subject(s) - placebo , analgesic , aspirin , anesthesia , morphine , medicine , stimulation , threshold of pain , pain tolerance , cold pressor test , heart rate , blood pressure , alternative medicine , pathology
Two methods of inducing pain experimentally in man have been investigated as possible laboratory instruments for evaluating analgesic efficiency; one uses electrical stimulation of two fingers, yielding one touch and two pain response parameters, the other, thermal stimulation of the hand by immersion in ice water, yielding three pain response parameters. Sixty paid healthy volunteers were divided into three groups of 20 each. One group received placebo in all four experimental sessions, the second received morphine twice and placebo twice, and the third received aspirin twice and placebo twice. The results indicated significant changes occurring during morphine conditions for both the pain, but not the touch, response parameters produced by electrical stimulation; and for pain tolerance and pain sensitivity range, but not for pain threshold, obtained with ice‐water stimulation. Aspirin failed to produce Significant changes in any response parameter with either technique, but in some subiects lowered the pain threshold. Some laterality differences between the dominant and nondominant hands were observed which were occasionally significant.