Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2025 Feb 13;4(1):7.
doi: 10.1038/s44184-025-00122-0.

Early signs of long-term pain: prospective network profiles from late adolescence and lifelong follow-up

William Hedley Thompson  1   2   3 , Emelie Thern  4 , Filip Gedin  5 , Anna Andreasson  5   6 , Karin B Jensen #  5 , Maria Lalouni #  5
Affiliations

Early signs of long-term pain: prospective network profiles from late adolescence and lifelong follow-up

William Hedley Thompson et al. Npj Ment Health Res. .

Abstract

This study applies network theory to registry data to identify prospective differences between individuals who develop long-term pain later in life and those who do not. The research is based on assessments of biological, psychological, and social variables in late adolescence during military conscription in Sweden. The analysis reveals significant differences in the network profiles of adolescent men who later developed long-term pain. These differences are reflected in several network-based outputs, including global, nodal, and edge levels, revealing a consistent picture of the pain-associated network profile. This profile demonstrates how those vulnerable to long-term pain have a specific configuration of variables that skew away from the rest of the population, mainly relating to psychosocial aspects.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1. The general network, showing the relation of 103 variables collected during national military conscription for all participants in the cohort.
Colours indicate the community (i.e. variables that cluster together). The size of the node shows the strength of a node. Edge width and transparency depict the magnitude of the statistical relationship. Five selected nodes are highlighted in five of the six communities. The sixth community (physical tests, green) all have relatively low strength and are not clearly visible in this static image. An interactive version of the figure is available https://wiheto.github.io/conscription_network/.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2. Euclidean distance between the general network, containing all participants, vs the Pain cohorts (red) and randomly sampled networks of similar size (median and 95% confidence interval).
A The log Euclidean distance, (B) The normalised Euclidean difference where the median difference of the bootstrapped distribution was subtracted.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3. Global and significant nodal network measures comparing long-term pain and no diagnosed pain.
Significant results for varying global (A) and nodal measures (B–D) between the Pain and No Diagnosed Pain cohorts. A Global clustering coefficient. B Strength. C Eigenvector centrality. D Clustering Coefficient. All nodal properties are FDR corrected. See Supplementary Table 2 for all centrality results.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4. A network visualisation depicts the significant cluster identified after a permutation test comparing edges between the two cohorts.
The significant cluster represents a connected component of the network in which all edges significantly differ between cohorts, with the size of this cluster exceeding what would be expected under the null hypothesis of no cluster of connected edges. Red edges indicate greater values in the pain cohort, while blue edges indicate greater values in the No Diagnosed Pain cohort. The threshold for cluster formation was set at 0.04.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Ferrari, A. J. et al. Global incidence, prevalence, years lived with disability (YLDs), disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs), and healthy life expectancy (HALE) for 371 diseases and injuries in 204 countries and territories and 811 subnational locations, 1990–2021: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021. Lancet403, 2133–2161 (2024). - PMC - PubMed
    1. Gaskin, D. J. & Richard, P. The economic costs of pain in the United States. J. Pain13, 715–724 (2012). - PubMed
    1. Yong, R. J., Mullins, P. M. & Bhattacharyya, N. Prevalence of chronic pain among adults in the United States. Pain163, e328–e332 (2022). - PubMed
    1. IoM. Relieving Pain in America: A Blueprint for Transforming Prevention, Care, Education, and Research. xvii, 364 (National Academies Press, Washington, DC, US, 2011). - PubMed
    1. IPRCC. National Pain Strategy. A Comprehensive Population Health-Level Strategy for Pain. Report by the Interagency Pain Research Coordinating Committee. United States 2011. (2011).

LinkOut - more resources