Chronic pain affects millions of Americans, it can be difficult, even impossible to treat, and often seems unrelated to actual tissue damage.The skull bone marrow is increasingly recognized as immunologically active and a contributor to brain inflammation, leading to speculation that it may also play a role in pain sensation.This study confirmed that levels of a translocator protein generated in the skull bone marrow are elevated in patients with chronic pain, and correlate significantly with pain intensity and related outcomes.
"Increasingly recognized as a source of immune cells in health and disease," the skull bone marrow also may promote and/or maintain chronic pain from elsewhere in the body, researchers said.
Advanced imaging in 125 people with chronic knee or back pain and 22 healthy controls showed elevations in 18-kDa translocator protein (TSPO) -- produced in skull bone marrow and thought to help drive neuroinflammation -- were strongly linked with pain intensity and its interference with normal activities, according to Marco L. Loggia, PhD, of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and colleagues.
"[T]hese findings indicate that increased immune activity in the SBM [skull bone marrow] is linked to chronic pain and its associated symptoms," the group wrote in Science Translational Medicine. "This work highlights the emerging importance of SBM immunity in the development of chronic pain and possibly other conditions involving brain inflammation."
