The Role of Psychological and Genetic Factors in the Experience of Pain in a Sample of Physical Therapy Patients — 35p — Sebastian O’Farrell, Julia Mendel, Nathan Deichert

Both positive and negative emotional experiences, such as gratitude and stress, play a role in pain. In addition, genetic factors are essential for understanding the experience of pain, with the COMT gene being the most commonly studied gene in pain research. Research suggests that COMT haplotypes are associated with different levels of pain sensitivity and the val¹⁵⁸met substitution is associated with emotional experiences. Despite this evidence, little research has examined the interaction between emotional experience, COMT, and pain. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine whether the different variables interacted with each other to influence pain. We recruited 134 participants from physical therapy offices. Participants completed questionnaires assessing demographics, gratitude and stress, as well as pain severity and interference. Following completion of surveys, we collected DNA samples via buccal swabs, and used rtPCR to genotype four different SNPs on the COMT gene (rs6269, rs4633, rs4818, rs4680). PHASE software (version 2.1.1) was used to infer haplotypes. Participants had an average age of 60.91 (SD=18.44) and was mostly female (69.4%) and white (97.8%). The most commonly observed haplotypes were average pain sensitivity (APS, n=148) and low pain sensitivity (LPS, n=96). The high pain sensitivity (HPS) haplotype was the least commonly observed in our sample (n=19). Our results showed that gratitude and stress were correlated with pain severity and interference in the expected directions. COMT haplotypes and pain outcomes were mostly in the expected directions but failed to reach statistical significance. Furthermore, our results revealed that COMT haplotypes significantly moderated the relationship between both gratitude and stress in relation to pain outcomes. These results have important implications for pain interventions aimed at altering emotional states as outcomes may differ across haplotype. Funded in part by National Institutes of Health (P20GM103443).

Black Hills State University
Nathan Deichert