Adverse event reporting and regulatory analysis of pediatric cardiac assist devices.

Chronic inflammatory pain is defined as a persistent, subjective sensation that lasts beyond the expected healing period of 3 months. It is shaped by complex bio-psycho-social interactions () and is frequently exacerbated by anxiety and depression, forming a debilitating “pain-emotion” feedback loop (; ). Epidemiological data indicate that approximately 50% of chronic pain patients suffer from comorbid anxiety disorders (), which severely compromise their quality of life and present a significant challenge for clinical management. To address this complex interplay between chronic pain and emotional distress, sensory modulation has emerged as a promising therapeutic strategy. Beyond its discriminative capacity, affective tactile stimulation possesses well-documented analgesic properties and plays a critical role in emotional regulation. Pleasurable social contact, as a common prosocial behavior, is essential for establishing and maintaining social bonds (; ). In clinical care, appropriate affective tactile stimulation is a vital therapeutic factor; for instance, it is frequently employed to alleviate emotional distress such as depression and anxiety in patients (; ). However, the neural circuits governing the regulation of chronic inflammatory pain with anxiety remain poorly defined. Specifically, elucidating how affective tactile stimulation mitigates mood disorders through peripheral-to-central signaling is an urgent scientific question. The onset of affective tactile stimulation starts from the skin of the patient as the focus point to activate the receptors (), and different afferent fibers, including Aβ, Aδ, and C fibers, are activated at different rates, exerting both peripheral and central effects, and ultimately acting locally on the lesion (). Affective tactile stimulation acting comfort receptors are mainly low-threshold mechanosensory receptors (LTMR) (; ). Taking the skin as an example, nerve fibers from the dorsal root ganglia (DRG) are distributed in the subcutaneous area and are matched with various types of mechanoreceptors that respond to skin deformations in specific ways and transmit these stimuli to higher brain structures (). Light touch receptors need to respond to small forces, and LTMRs are mainly composed of Merkel cells, specialized cells in hairless skin, and various types of nerve ending vesicles, such as Ruffini endings, Meissner corpuscles, Pacinian corpuscles, and a variety of longitudinal and circumferential needle-like low-threshold mechanoreceptors that surround hair follicles (; ; ). Meanwhile, Aβ, Aδ, and C fibers propagate to the spinal cord at markedly different rates, and slow cutaneous tactile sensations particularly activate non-peptidergic C fibers.