Is the Central Sensitization Inventory (CSI) associated with quantitative sensory testing (QST)? A systematic review and meta-analysis

Randy Neblett; Juan P Sanabria-Mazo; Juan V Luciano; Milica Mirčić; Petar Čolović; Marija Bojanić; Milica Jeremić-Knežević; Tijana Aleksandrić; Aleksandar Knežević

doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2024.105612

Is the Central Sensitization Inventory (CSI) associated with quantitative sensory testing (QST)? A systematic review and meta-analysis

Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2024 Apr 10:161:105612. doi: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2024.105612. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Randy Neblett¹, Juan P Sanabria-Mazo², Juan V Luciano³, Milica Mirčić⁴, Petar Čolović⁵, Marija Bojanić⁵, Milica Jeremić-Knežević⁴, Tijana Aleksandrić⁶, Aleksandar Knežević⁶

Affiliations

¹ PRIDE Research Foundation, Dallas, TX, United States. Electronic address: randyneblett@pridedallas.com.
² Teaching, Research, & Innovation Unit, Parc Sanitari Sant Joan de Déu, St. Boi de Llobregat, Spain; Centre for Biomedical Research in Epidemiology and Public Health (CIBERESP), Madrid, Spain; Department of Basic, Developmental, and Educational Psychology, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Spain.
³ Teaching, Research, & Innovation Unit, Parc Sanitari Sant Joan de Déu, St. Boi de Llobregat, Spain; Centre for Biomedical Research in Epidemiology and Public Health (CIBERESP), Madrid, Spain; Department of Clinical and Health Psychology, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Spain.
⁴ Faculty of Medicine University of Novi Sad, Novi Sad, Serbia.
⁵ Department of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Novi Sad, Novi Sad, Serbia.
⁶ Faculty of Medicine University of Novi Sad, Novi Sad, Serbia; Medical Rehabilitation Clinic, Clinical Centre of Vojvodina, Novi Sad, Serbia.

PMID: 38604015
DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2024.105612

Abstract

Central sensitization (CS) involves an amplification of neural processing within the central nervous system that can result in widespread pain patterns and hypersensitivity to stimuli. The Central Sensitization Inventory (CSI) and various quantitative sensory testing (QST) methods purport to assess clinical markers of CS. The purpose of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to summarize and quantify the associations between total CSI scores and QST measures from previous studies. A systematic search identified 39 unique studies that were deemed eligible for the systematic review and 33 studies for meta-analyses (with 3314 subjects and 154 effect sizes), including five QST modalities: conditioned pain modulation, temporal summation, pressure pain threshold, heat pain threshold, and cold pain threshold. The meta-analysis yielded statistically significant CSI-QST correlations in total subject samples for all five QST modalities. The strongest associations were identified between CSI scores and pain threshold testing, especially pressure pain threshold, in which 51% of effects sizes, from 29 studies and 3071 subjects, were determined to be in a medium to large range.

Keywords: Central Sensitization; Central Sensitization Inventory; Conditioned pain modulation; Meta-analysis; Nociplastic pain; Pain; Pain threshold testing; Pressure pain threshold; Quantitative Sensory Testing; Systematic review; Temporal summation.

Publication types

Review