A great deal of efforts in the past few years related to the synthesis, Degradation and mapping of opiate receptors and the relation of f3-endorphin to other neurotransmitter systems. Recenly major efforts have have been undertaken to develop assays for f3-endorphin and cortisol in plasma to study possible effects of pain, stress, diural variation and activity. It was a well known fact that (3-endorphin and cortisol were secreted concomitantly by the pituitary gland. However, researchers have noted an increase or decrease of f3-endorphin and cortisol in pasma after Transcutaneous Electrical Neve Stimulation (=TENS), and there may or may not be the correlation between acute and chronic pain. This study has investigated that changes of p-endorphin and cortisol levels after TENS in the chronic pain(n =12) and normal healthy volunteer subjects (n =12). We measured (3-endorphin levels with [125 1] RIA KIT and cortisol levels with [125I] cortisol Immunoassay KIT, and also observed the changes of blood pressure and pulse rate before TENS, at 30 minutes and at 60 minutes after TENS.
The results were as follows:
1. There were no significant differences on age, height and weight in compared with groups.
2. The pain intensity was markedly improved in the experimental group after TENS.
3. The changes of blood pressure and pulse rates were not statistically significant in both groups after TENS.
4. The changes in (3-endorphin level were observed with a sight increase or decrease in both groups after TENS, but there were no constant tendency.
5. The changes in the cortisol levels were observed with a slight decreasing tendency in both groups after TENS but there were no signigicant changes in both groups. These results show that the relief of pain intensity with TENS were not correlated with (3-endorphin and cortisol levels.
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