Women suffer more pain than men across the whole body, major global study finds
(www.theguardian.com)
Doh! You're right. I had to dig deep into my old notes about this and here's the papers:
- https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.4053 (the most cited one, foundational for the sex differences in pain pathways)
- https://doi.org/10.7554/elife.69056 (follow up study that looked at how T cells modulate the dimorphism)
- https://doi.org/10.1097/j.pain.0000000000002215 (most recent study I could find)
- https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms19010281 (more of an "also relevant" paper)
Edit: Almost forgot the studies showing female (mammals) switch to the male pathway during pregnancy:
...and this study indicates that humans have the same genes associated with this sexual dimorphism:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10169414/?hl=en-US
Since it's highly unethical to test pain pathways in humans, we have to rely on the mouse studies and extrapolate from there. The RNA testing shows we have the exact same genes as mice for pain expression, so the evidence lines up that men and women are using these different pathways for pain.
I didn't just use "magical thinking" like I've of the other commenters suggested 🤷