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Importance: Biomarkers would greatly assist decision-making in the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of chronic pain., Objective: To undertake analytical validation of a sensorimotor cortical biomarker signature for pain consisting of 2 measures: sensorimotor peak alpha frequency (PAF) and corticomotor excitability (CME)., Design, Setting, and Participants: This cohort study at a single center (Neuroscience Research Australia) recruited participants from November 2020 to October 2022 through notices placed online and at universities across Australia. Participants were healthy adults aged 18 to 44 years with no history of chronic pain or a neurological or psychiatric condition. Participants experienced a model of prolonged temporomandibular pain with outcomes collected over 30 days. Electroencephalography to assess PAF and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to assess CME were recorded on days 0, 2, and 5. Pain was assessed twice daily from days 1 through 30., Exposure: Participants received an injection of nerve growth factor (NGF) to the right masseter muscle on days 0 and 2 to induce prolonged temporomandibular pain lasting up to 4 weeks., Main Outcomes and Measures: The predictive accuracy of the PAF/CME biomarker signature was determined using a nested control-test scheme: machine learning models were run on a training set (n = 100), where PAF and CME were predictors and pain sensitivity was the outcome. The winning classifier was assessed on a test set (n = 50) comparing the predicted pain labels against the true labels., Results: Among the final sample of 150 participants, 66 were female and 84 were male; the mean (SD) age was 25.1 (6.2) years. The winning classifier was logistic regression, with an outstanding area under the curve (AUC = 1.00). The locked model assessed on the test set had excellent performance (AUC = 0.88; 95% CI, 0.78-0.99). Results were reproduced across a range of methodological parameters. Moreover, inclusion of sex and pain catastrophizing as covariates did not improve model performance, suggesting the model including biomarkers only was more robust. PAF and CME biomarkers showed good to excellent test-retest reliability., Conclusions and Relevance: This study provides evidence for a sensorimotor cortical biomarker signature for pain sensitivity. The combination of accuracy, reproducibility, and reliability suggests the PAF/CME biomarker signature has substantial potential for clinical translation, including predicting the transition from acute to chronic pain.

Breast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has the highest sensitivity for breast cancer detection compared to other breast imaging modalities such as mammography and ultrasound. As a functional modality, it captures the increased angiogenic activity of breast cancer through gadolinium-based contrast enhancement. Normal breast tissue also enhances, albeit in distinct patterns termed background parenchymal enhancement (BPE). Asymmetric enhancement, i.e., when one breast enhances more prominently than the other, can pose a diagnostic challenge for interpreting radiologists as distinguishing suspicious nonmass enhancement (NME) versus benign asymmetric BPE can be difficult. Correlating with patient history and imaging findings can help differentiate benign versus suspicious patterns of asymmetric enhancement. We present a collection of cases illustrating clues helpful for assessing asymmetric enhancement encountered on breast MRI., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest None., (Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier Inc.)