March 23, 2006

Annotated Citation #7

Research Methods Lab

Tuesday 9am

Chesterton, L. S., Barlas, P., Foster, N. E., Baxter, G. D., & Wright, C. C. (2003). Gender differences in pressure pain threshold in healthy humans. Pain, 101, 259-266.

MacGregor, A. J., Griffiths, G. O., Baker, J., & Spector, T. D. (1997). Determinants of pressure pain in adult twins: evidence that shared environmental influences predominate. Pain, 73, 253-257.

Sheffield, D., Biles, P. L., Orom, H., Maixner, W., & Sheps, D. S. (2000). Race and sex differences in cutaneous pain perception. Psychosomatic Medicine, 62, 517-523.

Annotation

In this study researchers determined race/sex differences in cutaneous pain perception. White/African Americans were used in order to determine the difference of pain perception between races.

Reaction

I found the study interesting because there is in fact a difference in pain threshold between races as well as sexes. African Americans registered stimuli as more unpleasant and rated it more intense than whites. This gives rise to the idea that pain threshold mechanisms in the body may differentiate between races. Pain differentiation between sexes were also seen in this study as well.