Christopher D. King, PhD

Biography & Affiliation Education Publications

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Assistant Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics

Biography & Affiliation

Biography

Dr. King has contributed to science by looking at psychological and group-level (i.e., subgrouping of patients) factors underlying analgesic responses to opioid analgesics in healthy adults, opioid regulation of conditioned pain modulation (CPM), and ethnic differences in experimental pain sensitivity, clinical pain, and pain-related disability in patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA). CPM is used to look at the modulatory capacity in humans. It is reduce in chronic pain and older age. Reduction of CPM may contribute to pain and alter somatosensory processing and autonomic regulation. As part of the OA study, Dr. King also examined predictors of knee pain prospectively. Lastly, Dr. King has been involved in several independent studies exploring possible stress-related markers associated with cold pain, which is used as the conditioning stimulus in CPM. He has shown that pain induces the release of endocrine and immune markers, and that they can influence pain responsiveness in pain-free subjects.

Dr. King recently finished a study with naltrexone, an opioid antagonist, on pain modulation, which revealed an interesting interaction between the ability to inhibit pain through endogenous opioids and psychological functioning in pain-free subjects. The recent studies are a first step in a process to evaluate physiological responses induced by pain.

Research Interests

Pain; stress; inflammation

Academic Affiliation

Assistant Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics

Departments

Anesthesia, Imaging

Education

PhD: University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 2006.

Publications

Cruz-Almeida Y, Sibille KT, Goodin BR, Petrov ME, Bartley EJ, Riley JL 3rd, King CD, Glover TL, Sotolongo A, Herbert MS, Schmidt JK, Fessler BJ, Staud R, Redden D, Bradley LA, Fillingim RB. Racial and ethnic differences in older adults with knee osteoarthritis. Arthritis Rheumatol. 2014 Jul;66(7):1800-10.

King CD. A possible mechanism underlying conditioned pain modulation. Pain. 2014 Jun;155(6):1047-8.

Vierck CJ, Wong F, King CD, Mauderli AP, Schmidt S, Riley JL 3rd. Characteristics of sensitization associated with chronic pain conditions. Clin J Pain. 2014 Feb;30(2):119-28

Goodin BR, Pham QT, Glover TL, Sotolongo A, King CD, Sibille KT, Herbert MS, Cruz-Almeida Y, Sanden SH, Staud R, Redden DT, Bradley LA, Fillingim RB. Perceived racial discrimination, but not mistrust of medical researchers, predicts the heat pain tolerance of African Americans with symptomatic knee osteoarthritis. Health Psychol. 2013 Nov;32(11):1117-26.

Cruz-Almeida Y, King CD, Goodin BR, Sibille KT, Glover TL, Riley JL, Sotolongo A, Herbert MS, Schmidt J, Fessler BJ, Redden DT, Staud R, Bradley LA, Fillingim RB. Psychological profiles and pain characteristics of older adults with knee osteoarthritis. Arthritis Care Res (Hoboken). 2013 Nov;65(11):1786-94.

King CD, Sibille KT, Goodin BR, Cruz-Almeida Y, Glover TL, Bartley E, Riley JL, Herbert MS, Sotolongo A, Schmidt J, Fessler BJ, Redden DT, Staud R, Bradley LA, Fillingim RB. Experimental pain sensitivity differs as a function of clinical pain severity in symptomatic knee osteoarthritis. Osteoarthritis Cartilage. 2013 Sep;21(9):1243-52.

King CD, Goodin B, Kindler LL, Caudle RM, Edwards RR, Gravenstein N, Riley JL 3rd, Fillingim RB. Reduction of conditioned pain modulation in humans by naltrexone: an exploratory study of the effects of pain catastrophizing. J Behav Med. 2013 Jun;36(3):315-27.

Goodin BR, Kronfli T, King CD, Glover TL, Sibille K, Fillingim RB. Testing the relation between dispositional optimism and conditioned pain modulation: does ethnicity matter? J Behav Med. 2013 Apr;36(2):165-74.

King CD, Goodin B, Glover TL, Riley JL, Hou W, Staud R, Fillingim RB. Is the pain-reducing effect of opioid medication reliable? A psychophysical study of morphine and pentazocine analgesia. Pain. 2013 Mar;154(3):476-83.

Goodin BR, Glover TL, Sotolongo A, King CD, Sibille KT, Herbert MS, Cruz-Almeida Y, Sanden SH, Staud R, Redden DT, Bradley LA, Fillingim RB. The association of greater dispositional optimism with less endogenous pain facilitation is indirectly transmitted through lower levels of pain catastrophizing. J Pain. 2013 Feb;14(2):126-35.