Publications by authors named "Matthew Amick"
Article Synopsis
- PTSD is common among patients with chronic pain and negatively affects their pain management and increases opioid use.
- In a study of 808 participants, those with high emotional support showed a lower association between PTSD and continued opioid use compared to those with lower emotional support.
- The findings suggest that enhancing emotional support for patients with chronic pain and PTSD could potentially reduce the need for sustained opioid treatment.
Background: Prescribing benzodiazepines to older patients is controversial. Anxiety disorders and benzodiazepines have been associated with dementia, but literature is inconsistent. It is unknown if anxiety treated with a benzodiazepine, compared to anxiety disorder alone is associated with dementia risk.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: Synopsis Patients with non-cancer pain reported increased pain and pain interference during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic. We determined if pain, prescription opioid use, and comorbidities were associated with perceived COVID-19-related stress as the pandemic peaked. Analysis of survey data revealed that depression/anxiety, pain severity, and pain interference were most strongly and consistently associated with greater stress due to COVID-19 related changes in lifestyle, worsening of emotional/mental health and worsening pain.
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- The study examines how STAT5, a signaling protein, misbinds to genes involved in inflammation in monocytes from Type 1 diabetic humans.
- Researchers used genetically modified mice (B6.NOD C11bxC1tb) to model these changes, demonstrating that specific genetic regions combined with STAT5 binding lead to altered expression of inflammatory genes CSF2 and PTGS2.
- These modified mice showed symptoms of diabetes, such as high blood sugar and pancreatic damage, suggesting that the gene expression changes in immune cells may increase diabetes risk even in mice that are not typically prone to autoimmune diseases.
STAT5 proteins are adaptor proteins for histone acetylation enzymes. Histone acetylation at promoter and enhancer chromosomal regions opens the chromatin and allows access of transcription enzymes to specific genes in rapid response cell signals, such as in inflammation. Histone acetylation-mediated gene regulation is involved in expression of 2 key inflammatory response genes: CSF2, encoding granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF), and PTGS2, encoding prostaglandin synthase 2/cyclooxygenase 2 (PGS2/COX2).
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