Abstract
Reactions to radiant heat stimuli were measured in dysmenorrheic and nondysmenorrheic women across a 4-week period. (Dysmenorrhea is a condition in which pain accompanies menstruation.) Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve parameters were computed for each of the phases of the menstrual cycle. When painful stimuli were used, a group × phase interaction was found in the analysis on the d’e scores. Nondysmenorrheic women were found to vary cyclically in their ability to discriminate painful from nonpainful stimuli, whereas dysmenorrheic women showed consistent pain reactions throughout the whole cycle. Cyclic effects were not apparent in the analyses on the response criteria or in those on reactions to thermal stimuli. The results suggest that women who experience pain with menstruation differ from women who do not differ in their perception of pain across the menstrual cycle. The sensory differences between the groups of women were not characteristic of responses to thermal stimuli and were not accompanied by shifts in willingness to report pain. Biochemical differences between dysmenorrheic and nondysmenorrheic women are believed to be the cause of the differences in pain reactions across phase.
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This research was supported by National Institutes of Health Grant R01 HD 14261-01.
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Goolkasian, P. An ROC analysis of pain reactions in dysmenorrheic and nondysmenorrheic women. Perception & Psychophysics 34, 381–386 (1983). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03203051
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03203051