The differential effects of sleep deprivation on pain perception in individuals with or without chronic pain: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Many experimental sleep deprivation (SD) studies were conducted to clarify the causal relationship between sleep and pain. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to update the evidence regarding the effects of different experimental SD paradigms on various pain outcomes. Five databases were searched from their inception to June 2022. Separate random-effects models were used to estimate the pooled effect sizes (ES) of different experimental SD paradigms on various pain outcomes. Thirty-one studies involving 699 healthy individuals and 47 individuals with chronic pain were included. For healthy individuals, limited evidence substantiated that total SD significantly reduced pain threshold and tolerance (ES 0.74-0.95), while moderate evidence supported that partial SD significantly increased spontaneous pain intensity (ES 0.30). Very limited to moderate evidence showed that sleep fragmen-tation significantly increased peripheral and central sensitization in healthy individuals (ES 0.42-0.79). Further, there was very limited evidence that total or partial SD significantly aggravated spontaneous pain intensity in people with chronic pain. Our results accentuated that different SD paradigms differ-entially increased subjective pain intensity and worsened peripheral/central pain sensitization in healthy individuals, whereas the corresponding findings in people with chronic pain remain uncertain. Further rigorous studies are warranted to quantify their relationships in clinical populations.(c) 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Automated summary

This systematic review and meta-analysis examined the effects of different experimental sleep deprivation paradigms on pain outcomes. The results showed that total sleep deprivation significantly reduced pain threshold and tolerance in healthy individuals, while partial sleep deprivation increased spontaneous pain intensity. Sleep fragmentation was found to increase peripheral and central sensitization in healthy individuals. The effects of sleep deprivation on pain outcomes in individuals with chronic pain were uncertain. Further research is needed to better understand these relationships.