Aged females unilaterally hypersensitize, lack descending inhibition, and overexpress alpha1D adrenergic receptors in a murine posttraumatic chronic pain model.

Vulnerability to chronic pain is found to depend on age and sex. Most patients with chronic pain are elderly women, especially with posttraumatic pain after bone fracture that prevails beyond the usual recovery period and develops into a complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS). There, a distal bone fracture seems to initiate a pathophysiological process with unknown mechanism.