Kelly, Kate ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2954-2009, Keohane, Emily ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2511-180X and Davy, Gemma (2025) The effect of chronic pain on memory: A systematic review and meta-analysis exploring the impact of nociceptive, neuropathic and nociplastic pain. Brain and Cognition, 187. p. 106305. ISSN 0278-2626

Abstract

Chronic pain is becoming increasingly prevalent in modern society. Much research to date has focused on the physical symptoms of pain associated with various conditions, yet living with chronic pain is also known to impact an individual's cognition. Within cognition, memory is particularly vulnerable to outside factors, yet our understanding of the impact of chronic pain on memory is inconclusive. This systematic review and meta-analysis examined the association between chronic pain type and memory performance. Chronic pain samples were classified as nociceptive, neuropathic or nociplastic and were compared to healthy controls. Studies were sourced from Embase, Web of Science, MEDLINE, PubMed, PsycINFO, Scopus and CINAHL databases between December 2023 and July 2024. A total of 15 good – strong studies with 1865 participants were included (106 who experienced chronic nociceptive pain, 315 who experienced chronic neuropathic pain, 589 who experienced chronic nociplastic pain and 855 healthy controls). Results indicated that individuals with nociceptive and nociplastic pain had impaired short-term and long-term memory performance compared to healthy controls. The same was not true for individuals with neuropathic pain. These findings demonstrate that the type of pain one experiences impacts memory performance. This has profound implications both clinically and with regard to research and offers a new lens for how we can consider chronic pain when trying to understand the impact on cognition.

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