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Can the Brain Make TMD Worse?

The chronic pain of Temporomandibular Disorders (TMD) can be debilitating and interfere significantly with daily life.

Electric Stimulation of the Brain to Relieve Pain

It has been known for decades that the brain has its own pain-relieving chemicals. They are called endogenous “opioids,” because of...

Brain Signals Help the Spread of Persistence of Pain

Neuroscientists have long sought to explain how recovery from an acute injury can sometimes give rise to chronic pain—and not always in the...

Estrogen's Impact on TMD Pain Your Responses

In our March 2013 issue of TMJ News Bites we asked: "Do...

Don't be Fooled By False Claims

Health fraud scams can do more than waste your money. They can cause serious injury or even death, says Gary Coody, R.Ph., the FDA’s...

More on the Role of Estrogens in TMD

May 1, 2012

That TMD predominantly strikes women in their childbearing years has long intrigued scientists. But studies of the effects of female hormones—exactly how they affect TMD symptoms—remain controversial.

Now scientists in China, in an experiment on female rats with inflamed jaws, suggest that estradiol (the most potent of naturally occurring estrogens in mammals) increases pain sensitivity. It does this by stimulating nerve cells in a part of the brain called the hippocampus to express a specific type of “vanilloid” receptor that responds to pain associated with acid, hot peppers, and heat (including the heat associated with inflammation). This expression of vanilloid receptors amplifies the pain signals coming into the brain from nerves in the inflamed jaws.

The studies involved female rats whose jaws had become painfully inflamed as a result of a chemical injection. The ovaries of the rats had been surgically removed (ovariectomy), but the rats were then given varying doses of replacement estradiol. Compared to a control group of ovariectomized rats without replacement hormones, the estradiol rats proved more sensitive to normally painless pressures applied to the jaw, which they showed by quickly withdrawing their heads to mild pressures. As a further confirmation of their conclusions, the experimenters injected a substance into the hippocampus that blocked the actions of the vanilloid receptors and showed that it significantly reduced the rat’s sensitivity to mild pressures.

17-β-Estradiol Enhanced Allodynia of Inflammatory Temporomandibular Joint through Upregulation of Hippocampal TRPV1 in Ovariectomized Rats

Chronic Pain Research Alliance

Current Research shows these conditions frequently coexist, overlapping with TMJ Disorders

  • Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
  • Endometriosis
  • Fibromyalgia
  • Vulvodynia
  • Interstitial Cystitis
  • Irritable Bowel Syndrome

Why Is That?

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