“Neural and Sociocultural Mediators of Ethnic Differences in Pain”
The common belief that African Americans feel less pain has been related to undertreatment of pain in this ethnic group, which contributes to widespread and persistent racial and ethnic health disparities. Paradoxically, African Americans actually report more pain than White Americans in both clinical and laboratory settings. In this study, we examined nociceptive sensitivity by looking at the activity in brain regions previously linked to nociception in whole-brain analyses and tested responses in a multivariate fMRI activity pattern that closely tracks the intensity and affect of evoked nociceptive pain, termed the neurologic pain signature (NPS). Our findings suggest that the link between chronic pain and ethnic differences in pain sensitivity may lie in the chronic stress associated with discrimination.