Thermograms and the vasomotor reflex

AbstractPain is a multidimensional complex subjective perception with different components. Infrared thermography might be helpful to visualize the pain reflex components by showing an increased or decreased skin temperature compared to the opposite body area. By mirroring and subtracting the left from the right back area we can show temperature asymmetries. From the manipulated thermogram, only the pixels with a temperature asymmetry more than 0.6°C are maintained.We examined 25 well diagnosed back pain patients, 24 healthy volunteers and 26 fibromyalgia patients by a computer-assisted infrared thermograph system. The two-tailed Student's- t-test (p < 0.05 as significant) is used for statistical analysis.In healthy volunteers and in fibromyalgia patients, temperature asymmetries in the back are very small (p = 0.27) compared with unilateral pain pathologies. This is reflected in a lower pixel amount in volunteers and fibromyalgia patients than in unilateral back pain patients (p = 0.000).Local temperatur...