Pain Modulatory Profiles in Massage for Healthy Participants

One in ten adults experience widespread pain. Neck pain, for example, is a prevalent condition with a high rate of recurrence that affects between 10.4% and 21.3% of the population annually. Massage is a common manual therapy intervention for individuals with musculoskeletal pain. However, the mechanisms of massage are not well established. Also, the conditioned pain modulation (CPM) paradigm is a dynamic quantitative sensory testing measure of a pain inhibitory process in which pain sensitivity is lessened in response to a remotely applied painful stimulus. This study will evaluate the association between pain inducing massage and the conditioned pain modulation paradigm.