A comparison of pain responses, hemodynamic reactivity and fibre type composition between Bergström and microbiopsy skeletal muscle biopsies

Jacob T Bonafiglia; Hashim Islam; Nicholas Preobrazenski; Patrick Drouin; Andrew Ma; Austin Gerhart; Joe Quadrilatero; Michael E Tschakovsky; Dean A Tripp; Christopher G R Perry; Craig A Simpson; Brendon J Gurd

doi:10.1016/j.crphys.2020.05.001

A comparison of pain responses, hemodynamic reactivity and fibre type composition between Bergström and microbiopsy skeletal muscle biopsies

Curr Res Physiol. 2020 May 30:3:1-10. doi: 10.1016/j.crphys.2020.05.001. eCollection 2020 Dec.

Affiliations

¹ School of Kinesiology and Health Studies, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, K7L 3N6, Canada.
² Department of Kinesiology, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, N2L 3G5, Canada.
³ Departments of Psychology, Anesthesiology and Urology, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, K7L 3N9, Canada.
⁴ School of Kinesiology and Health Science, York University, Toronto, Ontario, M3J 1P3, Canada.
⁵ School of Medicine, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, K7L 3L4, Canada.

Abstract

This study tested the hypotheses that 1) skeletal muscle biopsies performed with the Bergström needle evoke larger perceptions of pain and greater hemodynamic reactivity compared to biopsies performed with the microbiopsy needle, and 2) both needles yield samples with similar fibre type compositions when samples are collected at similar skeletal muscle depths. Fourteen healthy (age: 21.6 ± 3.2 years; VO₂peak: 41.5 ± 5.8 mL/kg/min) males (n = 7) and females (n = 7) provided two resting skeletal muscle biopsies, one with each needle type, following a randomized crossover design. Participants completed the short-form McGill Pain Questionnaire and the Brief Pain Inventory before, during, and after the skeletal muscle biopsies. Hemodynamic reactivity was assessed by measuring heart rate (HR) and mean arterial pressure (MAP) at rest and during the biopsy procedures. Immunofluorescence analysis was used to assess fibre type composition in vastus lateralis samples. Compared to the microbiopsy needle, the Bergström needle elicited a larger perception of pain but similar hemodynamic reactivity during the biopsy. Both needles yielded skeletal muscle samples with similar fibre type composition and resulted in similar perceptions of pain and pain-related interference during the post-biopsy recovery period. Collectively, these findings suggest that studies should consider using the microbiopsy needle rather than the Bergström needle unless large amounts of muscle tissue or certain muscle fibre lengths are required. However, future work should determine whether our findings are generalizable to biopsies performed with different procedures and/or types of Bergström/microbiopsy needles.

Keywords: BPI, Brief pain inventory; BPI-6, Brief pain inventory question #6; BPI-9, Brief pain inventory question #9; HR, Heart rate; Heart rate; MAP, Mean arterial pressure; McGill-D, Descriptors from the McGill Pain Questionnaire; Mean arterial pressure; PCS, Pain catastrophizing scale; PPI, Present pain intensity; Perceptions of pain; Skeletal muscle biopsies; VAS, Visual analog scale; VO2peak, Peak oxygen consumption.