Skull bone marrow inflammation marker rises with chronic pain severity
Chronic pain affects almost one-quarter of U.S. adults. Yet, for most people, current treatment approaches provide only limited relief. Recent research has pointed to bone marrow found in the skull as an important site of communication between the brain and the immune system.
Chronic pain affects a quarter of U.S. adults, but current treatments often only provide limited relief. Recent research has identified the skull bone marrow as a key site where the brain and immune system communicate. A study in Science Translational Medicine found a link between worse pain and depression symptoms and higher levels of a protein linked to inflammation in the skull bone marrow.
Marco Loggia, Ph.D., the study's senior author, suggests this discovery could lead to new pain treatments. The research included 125 adults with chronic pain, like low back pain and knee osteoarthritis, alongside 22 healthy controls. PET/MRI imaging revealed significantly higher levels of 18-kDa translocator protein (TSPO), an immune-cell marker, in people with chronic pain compared to those without.
TSPO levels correlated with pain intensity and psychological symptoms like anxiety and depression. Postmortem analyses of skull bone marrow from humans with severe headaches and peripheral neuropathy showed higher TSPO-positive cell density compared to those without chronic pain. While the study doesn't prove causation, it highlights the potential importance of skull bone marrow in chronic pain diagnosis and treatment, indicating further research could explore whether therapies targeting this area could improve outcomes for chronic pain sufferers.
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