ArticlePain2012
Sex similarities and differences in pain-related periaqueductal gray connectivity.
Article in Pain, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 60 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
60 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Neuroimaging of the periaqueductal gray: state of the field.NeuroImage · 2012Pooled it
- Gender differences in functional connectivities between insular subdivisions and selective pain-related brain structures.The journal of headache and pain · 2018Trial
- Consumption of fermented milk product with probiotic modulates brain activity.Gastroenterology · 2013Trial
- Trial
- Sex differences in pain in 2 large and diverse US databases.Pain reports · 2026Article
- Association of nociplastic pain with executive function decline in a longitudinal cohort of middle-age adults: a prospective cohort study.British journal of anaesthesia · 2025Article
- The number of central nervous system-driven symptoms predicts subsequent chronic primary pain. Response to Br J Anaesth 2025; 135: 493-4 and 135: 495-6.British journal of anaesthesia · 2025Article
- Group-specific discriminant analysis enhances detection of sex differences in brain functional network lateralization.GigaScience · 2025Article
- Behavioral and neural correlates of diverse conditioned fear responses in male and female rats.Neurobiology of stress · 2024Article
- Behavioral and neural correlates of diverse conditioned fear responses in male and female rats.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Gender Differences in Pain Threshold, Unpleasantness, and Descending Pain Modulatory Activation Across the Adult Life Span: A Cross Sectional Study.The journal of pain · 2024Article
- The contribution of periaqueductal gray in the regulation of physiological and pathological behaviors.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2024Review
- Generation of a whole-brain hemodynamic response function and sex-specific differences in cerebral processing of mechano-sensation in mice detected by BOLD fMRI.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2023Article
- The power of negative and positive episodic memories.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2022Review
- Article
- Gamma-aminobutyric acid and glutamate/glutamine levels in the dentate nucleus and periaqueductal gray with episodic and chronic migraine: a proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy study.The journal of headache and pain · 2022Article
- Modulation effect of acupuncture treatment on chronic neck and shoulder pain in female patients: Evidence from periaqueductal gray-based functional connectivity.CNS neuroscience & therapeutics · 2022Article
- Altered Functional Connectivity in Pain-Related Brain Regions and Its Correlation with Pain Duration in Bone Metastasis with Cancer Pain.Disease markers · 2022Article
- Increased pain unpleasantness and pain-related fMRI activation in the periaqueductal gray in Alzheimer's disease.Frontiers in pain research (Lausanne, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Sexual dimorphism in functional pain syndromes.Science translational medicine · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
This study investigated sex similarities and differences in pain-related functional connectivity in 60 healthy subjects. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging and psychophysiological interaction analysis to investigate how exposure to low vs high experimental pain modulates the functional connectivity of the periaqueductal gray (PAG). We found no sex differences in pain thresholds, and in both men and women, the PAG was more functionally connected with the somatosensory cortex, the supplemental motor area, cerebellum, and thalamus during high pain, consistent with anatomic predictions. Twenty-six men displayed a pain-induced increase in PAG functional connectivity with the amygdala caudate and putamen that was not observed in women. In an extensive literature search, we found that female animals have been largely overlooked when the connections between the PAG and the amygdala have been described, and that women are systematically understudied with regard to endogenous pain inhibition. Our results emphasize the importance of including both male and female subjects when studying basic mechanisms of pain processing, and point toward a possible sex difference in endogenous pain inhibition.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.