Vaegter HB, et al. - In patients with accident-related chronic spinal pain with and without comorbid posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) characteristics, researchers investigated antinociceptive and pronociceptive pain mechanisms, pain intensity, and psychological distress (depression, anxiety, pain catastrophizing, and fear of movement). They performed Cuff algometry on lower legs to assess pressure pain threshold (cPPT), tolerance (cPTT), temporal summation of pain (increase in pain scores to 10 repeated stimulations), and conditioning pain modulation (increase in cPPT during cuff pain conditioning on the contralateral leg). Compared with patients without PTSD, patients with PTSD demonstrated increased pain intensity, and psychological distress, as well as reduced warmth detection threshold and cPTT. In this work, the association between PTSD and pain intensity was in accordance with the mutual-maintenance and fear-avoidance models.