ArticlePain2019
Insight into the genetic architecture of back pain and its risk factors from a study of 509,000 individuals.
Article in Pain, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 58 papers, 7 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
The trial behind it
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
58 citing papers in PubMed, 7 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 114 citations in OpenAlex.
- Genetic architecture of lumbar spinal stenosis.Nature communications · 2026Pooled it
- Multi-ancestry meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies discovers 67 new loci associated with chronic back pain.Nature communications · 2025Pooled it
- Genome-wide meta-analysis conducted in three large biobanks expands the genetic landscape of lumbar disc herniations.Nature communications · 2024Pooled it
- A multi-ancestry genetic study of pain intensity in 598,339 veterans.Nature medicine · 2024Pooled it
- Genome wide association joint analysis reveals 99 risk loci for pain susceptibility and pleiotropic relationships with psychiatric, metabolic, and immunological traits.PLoS genetics · 2023Pooled it
- Causal effects of psychosocial factors on chronic back pain: a bidirectional Mendelian randomisation study.European spine journal : official publication of the European Spine Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society · 2022Pooled it
- ISSLS Prize in Clinical Science 2020. Examining causal effects of body mass index on back pain: a Mendelian randomization study.European spine journal : official publication of the European Spine Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society · 2020 · on this mapPooled it
- Dorsal horn DCC amplification loop induced by endplate osteoclasts generates chronic nociplastic low back pain in male mice.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Testican-2 (SPOCK2): A multifunctional matricellular regulator.Matrix biology : journal of the International Society for Matrix Biology · 2026Review
- GWAS of extended prescription analgesic use identifies genetic loci in chronic pain.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Transcriptome of the human C2 dorsal root ganglia in C1-2 arthrodesis surgery: insight for neck pain.Brain : a journal of neurology · 2026Article
- Does Combining the STarT Back Tool With a Polygenic Risk Score for Chronic Low Back Pain Improve Prediction of Work Disability Over 2 Years?European journal of pain (London, England) · 2026Article
- Genetic risk of chronic pain conditions associated with risk of suicide death through an integrative analysis of EHR and genomics data.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Single-nuclei RNA sequencing reveals distinct transcriptomic signatures of rat dorsal root ganglia in a chronic discogenic low back pain model.The journal of pain · 2026Article
- Immunohistochemical analysis to detect a molecular signature in intervertebral disc degeneration.Histochemistry and cell biology · 2025Article
- Understanding the Comorbidities Among Psychiatric Disorders, Chronic Low Back Pain, and Spinal Degenerative Disease Using Observational and Genetically Informed Analyses.Biological psychiatry global open science · 2025Article
- Patterns of shared genetic risk between chronic pain, psychopathologies, and neuroticism.Clinical psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science · 2025Article
- Challenges and opportunities for omics-based precision medicine in chronic low back pain.European spine journal : official publication of the European Spine Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society · 2025Review
- Predicting the Risk of Lumbar Prolapsed Disc: A Gene Signature-Based Machine Learning Analysis.Pain and therapy · 2025Article
- Integrating HiTOP and RDoC frameworks part II: shared and distinct biological mechanisms of externalizing and internalizing psychopathology.Psychological medicine · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors at 6 institutions in 5 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Back pain (BP) is a common condition of major social importance and poorly understood pathogenesis. Combining data from the UK Biobank and CHARGE consortium cohorts allowed us to perform a very large genome-wide association study (total N = 509,070) and examine the genetic correlation and pleiotropy between BP and its clinical and psychosocial risk factors. We identified and replicated 3 BP-associated loci, including one novel region implicating SPOCK2/CHST3 genes. We provide evidence for pleiotropic effects of genetic factors underlying BP, height, and intervertebral disk problems. We also identified independent genetic correlations between BP and depression symptoms, neuroticism, sleep disturbance, overweight, and smoking. A significant enrichment for genes involved in the central nervous system and skeletal tissue development was observed. The study of pleiotropy and genetic correlations, supported by the pathway analysis, suggests at least 2 strong molecular axes of BP genesis, one related to structural/anatomical factors such as intervertebral disk problems and anthropometrics, and another related to the psychological component of pain perception and pain processing. These findings corroborate with the current biopsychosocial model as a paradigm for BP. Overall, the results demonstrate BP to have an extremely complex genetic architecture that overlaps with the genetic predisposition to its biopsychosocial risk factors. The work sheds light on pathways of relevance in the prevention and management of low BP.
Indexed as
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What OpenQuestion holds
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.