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Sleep is essential for good mental and physical health, insufficient sleep increases the risk for several chronic diseases. Pre and postoperative sleep disturbances worsen pain. Caffeine in coffee and other beverages blocks the actions of adenosine in the brain. Adenosine is an endogenous sleep inducer.
Insufficient sleep enhances pain perception. Using a rat model of surgical pain, the research team tested whether prior sleep deprivation increases postoperative pain and caffeine blocks the increase in postoperative pain caused by sleep deprivation.
Researchers sought to identify a potential brain mechanism by which disrupted sleep worsens pain. The effect of sleep deprivation on pain sensitivity in operated and intact rats was virtually eliminated by pharmacologically blocking the action of adenosine in a brain region in the anterior hypothalamus known to regulate sleep, which is connected to major pain-related areas.
Extended wakefulness prior to surgery significantly enhanced postoperative pain behaviors and extended recovery time after surgery. Caffeine mitigate this effect. It blocked the increase in surgical pain caused by previous sleep loss.
Caffeine might prevent the increase in pain sensitivity by blocking part of the neurochemical changes induced by sleep deprivation in specific brain areas that control sleep and wakefulness, and project to pain-related sites.
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