Figure 10.

Circulating monocytes and plasma CXCL12 are increased in patients with chronic pain and are correlated with cognitive decline. (A) Memory function accessed by MoCA in patients with chronic neuropathic pain (Chronic pain, n = 30) was lower than healthy controls (Contr, n = 40). (B-G) Percentages of monocytes (B), granulocytes (C), neutrophils (D), lymphocytes (E), eosinophils (F), and basophils (G) in various groups were determined by routine blood analysis. (H) Concentration of plasma CXCL12 in healthy control subjects and chronic pain patients are shown. ^**P < 0.01, ^***P < 0.001 vs. healthy control group, two-tailed Student's t-test. (I) Scatterplots showing that the percentage of circulating monocytes (Spearman rank correlation, R² = 0.1022, P = 0.007) and plasma CXCL12 concentration (R² = 0.2323, P < 0.0001) was negatively correlated with MoCA scores in healthy controls and patients with chronic pain.