The Impact of Physical Activity on the Neurophysiologic and Gene Expression Profiles of Chronic Low Back Pain: A Longitudinal Cohort Study
The PI of the study is Dr. Wanli Xu.
In response to the National Pain Strategy’s call for “improvements in pain self-management programs that can help affected individuals improve their knowledge, skills and confidence to prevent, reduce and cope with pain…”, the Center’s team developed the Problem-solving Pain to Enhance Living Well (PROPEL) program.
PROPEL incorporates evidence-based, standard of care methods to promote physical activity among individuals with pain, and tools to improve knowledge, skills and confidence to cope with cLBP. In order to gain mechanistic insight into the impact of physical activity on the neurophysiologic and gene expression profiles of cLBP, we will engage participants in PROPEL, with support of nurse consultations and wearable activity tracking technology. Neurophysiologic measures will be obtained using a standardized protocol of quantitative sensory testing (QST). Gene expression profiling will be assayed using RNA sequencing, which has been successfully used to identify differential gene expression in small cohorts of patients with fibromyalgia, cluster headache, and migraine. To test the central hypothesis of this application, which is that moderate physical activity will exert a significant change in neurophysiological and gene expression profiles, we will conduct a one group, longitudinal cohort study of cLBP participants during the PROPEL program.
Participation will involve approximately 2 hours of your time per lab visit and 40 minutes per follow-up week. As part of this study, participants will undergo two visits, in person, 12 weeks apart. At visit one and visit 12, they will undergo a physical exam, some sensory testing, answer some questionnaires about the back pain, and have blood drawn and a buccal sample taken. In addition to the first visit, they will be given a Fitbit to wear for 12 weeks. They have to wear this Fitbit, charge and sync this Fitbit every day of the study. After the first visit we will send participants a link to 10 videos to watch that give them information about back pain and how to manage it. After that, at weeks 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10, they will receive follow up surveys via email and do phone consultation with a registered nurse.