Sunday, April 12, 2026

One in ten experience facial pain – New method can reveal the cost

Umea University

image:
Anna Lövgren, Associate Professor, Department of Odontology, Umeå University
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Credit: Photo: Hamdija Comic

Facial pain is one of the most common forms of chronic pain. Despite this, there has previously been no standardized burden measurements, such as impact on the individual and healthcare costs across countries and in relation to other diseases. A new international research collaboration, led by researchers at Umeå University, has now developed lay descriptions that make it possible to visualize the global burden of disease caused by facial pain.

“We can now, for the first time, compare the burden of living with facial pain to conditions such as diabetes—that is, how much a person is affected over the course of their life by having this condition,” says Anna Lövgren, Associate Professor at the Department of Odontology at Umeå University and one of the researchers leading the study.

Facial pain is often caused by overloading of the muscles or joints in the jaw, which then become painful. The condition affects everyday activities such as eating and speaking and is often long-lasting. Many individuals also experience concurrent problems, including headaches and disturbed sleep. Data from Sweden further show that people with facial pain are more likely to have long periods of sick leave. However, the total costs of this condition have so far been difficult to quantify.

“Now that we can estimate the disease burden of facial pain, we can also link it to health data and evaluate, for example, how many people are affected and what consequences this has for society. We can also estimate the cost of management in terms of healthcare visits, examinations, and treatment,” says Anna Lövgren.

Anna Lövgren is currently working to develop an initial estimate of the global disease burden of facial pain. Her hope is that care for patients with facial pain will become better and more accessible when it can be more easily compared to other diseases.

“We argue that this facial pain and related symptoms should be included in healthcare fee systems so that patients can afford the treatment they would benefit from. This is an undertreated condition,” says Anna Lövgren.

About the Study

Lövgren, A., Liv, P., Allison, J. R., et al. (2026). Lay descriptions of painful temporomandibular disorders—an international consensus proposal for Global Burden of Disease estimates. BMC Medicine, 24, 165. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-026-04790-3

Journal

BMC Medicine

DOI

10.1186/s12916-026-04790-3

Method of Research

Systematic review

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Lay descriptions of painful temporomandibular disorders—an international consensus proposal for Global Burden of Disease estimates

Soundscapes from nearby forests are more uplifting than those from faraway places

German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig

Robin redbreast singing — image:
The local high-diversity audio recording that the participants listened to included a singing robin redbreast. The experiment revealed that soundscapes from local temperate forests were more uplifting than those recorded in tropical Panama.
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Credit: Corey Callaghan

Listening to one-minute-long audio recordings of forests had positive effects on people’s short-term wellbeing, especially when the recordings were from local temperate forests. This is the key finding of an experiment led by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Leipzig University, the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, and the University of Freiburg. Study participants residing in Germany perceived soundscapes as more awe-inspiring and restorative when recorded in nearby forests than soundscapes that came from the tropics; higher or lower levels of animal diversity only had small effects on short-term wellbeing. The study has been published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology.

Many of us feel better when walking in a forest or spending time outdoors; however, scientists still do not fully understand whether and how the diversity of animals and plants contributes to wellbeing. So far, results have been mixed, especially when it comes to what we hear. Do forests with more bird and insect sounds make people feel better? And does it matter whether those sounds come from familiar, local forests or from faraway places?

Sounds are a big part of how we experience nature and biodiversity

“Sounds are a big part of how we experience nature and biodiversity — like birds singing when you walk through a forest,” says co-first author Kevin Rozario, a doctoral researcher at iDiv, UFZ, and the University of Jena. “However, we still don’t really know how the diversity and complexity of sounds affects how people feel, or why some sounds may be more uplifting than others.”

To shed light on these issues, the researchers carried out an experiment with 195 students in Germany. Participants listened to one-minute-long audio clips of forests that differed in two ways:

how many animal sounds they contained (few vs. many species), and
whether they came from local temperate or from faraway tropical forests.

Each participant listened to two recordings and answered questions about how they felt, how stressed they were, and how well they could focus before and after listening. They also rated how pleasant and familiar the sounds seemed, and estimated how many different animals they could hear. This allowed the team to assess how familiar the sounds felt and to compare the effects of the actual number of species in the recordings, with what participants thought they heard, i.e., the “perceived animal diversity”.

The strongest effects came from sounds that felt familiar

Overall, just listening to one-minute-long recordings of forest sounds — even through headphones — made people feel better: they reported more positive emotions, better focus, and less stress. But the strongest effects came from sounds that felt familiar. Recordings from local forests were rated as more pleasant and more restorative, and they also triggered stronger feelings of awe than sounds from tropical forests.

Having more different animal sounds only helped in some cases—for example, it increased feelings of awe when people listened to local forest recordings. What mattered more was what people thought they heard: when participants believed they could hear more animal species, they felt better overall and less negative. In contrast, sounds that felt complex but were not clearly linked to animals could even reduce positive feelings.

“Our findings show that it is not just about how many species are out there,” says senior author Prof. Aletta Bonn, research group head at the UFZ, iDiv, and the University of Jena. “Sounds that remind people of forests they know — like the birds they hear on a walk close to home — seem to have a much stronger positive effect. This provides amazing new insights into the complex ways in which biodiversity and mental wellbeing are connected.”

In the experiment, participants could also hear a cuckoo.

Credit

Gabriele Rada