ArticleAntioxidants (Basel, Switzerland)2020
Have We Looked in the Wrong Direction for More Than 100 Years? Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness Is, in Fact, Neural Microdamage Rather Than Muscle Damage.
Article in Antioxidants (Basel, Switzerland), 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 47 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
47 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 64 citations in OpenAlex.
- Physical Therapies for Delayed-Onset Muscle Soreness: An Umbrella and Mapping Systematic Review with Meta-meta-analysis.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2025Pooled it
- Effect of Caffeine Ingestion on Indirect Markers of Exercise-Induced Muscle Damage: A Systematic Review of Human Trials.Nutrients · 2022Pooled it
- The effect of acute beetroot juice consumption prior to climbing on lower-body isokinetic and isometric strength, aerobic power, and muscle soreness among mountain climbers.Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition · 2025Trial
- Impact of The Menstrual Cycle on Physical Recovery after Small-Sided Games: A Crossover Study in Women's Soccer Players.Journal of sports science & medicine · 2025Trial
- Influence of combined transcranial and peripheral electromagnetic stimulation on the autonomous nerve system on delayed onset muscle soreness in young athletes: a randomized clinical trial.Journal of translational medicine · 2025Trial
- Trial
- Trial
- Lactate Metabolism: Separating Correlation From Causation.BioEssays : news and reviews in molecular, cellular and developmental biology · 2026Review
- Piezo2-Initiated Ultrafast Signaling and Its Acquired Channelopathy in Light of Quantum Gravity Theory.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Review
- Molecular resilience of neurons to repetitive mechanical compression.Communications biology · 2026Article
- Effects of intermittent hypoxia and hypoxia-hyperoxia exposure on recovery from delayed onset muscle soreness in physically active men: protocol for a randomized controlled trial.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2026Article
- Effect of Nitrate Supplementation on Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness Indices: A Double-Blind, Randomized, Cross-Over Clinical Trial.Medical journal of the Islamic Republic of Iran · 2026Article
- Recovery After an Official Soccer Match: An Analysis of Markers of Muscle Damage and Oxidative Stress, and Endocrine, Neuromuscular and Perceptual Responses.Journal of functional morphology and kinesiology · 2025Article
- Heart Rate Variability Alterations During Delayed-Onset Muscle Soreness-Inducing Exercise-With Piezo2 Interpretation.Sports (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Delayed-Onset Muscle Soreness Begins with a Transient Neural Switch.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- Effects of 6 weeks of complex training on athletic performance and post-activation performance enhancement effect magnitude in soccer players: a cross-sectional randomized study.Biology of sport · 2025Article
- Exploring the mechanism of analgesic effect of Tuina on alleviating delayed muscle soreness in exercise-induced muscle damaged rats: a combined transcriptome- and non-targeted metabolome-based analysis.Frontiers in medicine · 2025Article
- Consuming Beetroot Juice Improves Slalom Performance and Reduces Muscle Soreness in Alpine Skiers under Hypoxic Conditions.Current developments in nutrition · 2024Article
- The 8:1:1 Supplementation of Branched-Chain Amino Acids in High-Intensity Training: A Case Study of the Protective Effect on Rhabdomyolysis.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
According to our hypothesis, delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) is an acute compression axonopathy of the nerve endings in the muscle spindle. It is caused by the superposition of compression when repetitive eccentric contractions are executed under cognitive demand. The acute compression axonopathy could coincide with microinjury of the surrounding tissues and is enhanced by immune-mediated inflammation. DOMS is masked by sympathetic nervous system activity at initiation, but once it subsides, a safety mode comes into play to prevent further injury. DOMS becomes manifest when the microinjured non-nociceptive sensory fibers of the muscle spindle stop inhibiting the effects of the microinjured, hyperexcited nociceptive sensory fibers, therefore providing the 'open gate' in the dorsal horn to hyperalgesia. Reactive oxygen species and nitric oxide play a cross-talking role in the parallel, interlinked degeneration-regeneration mechanisms of these injured tissues. We propose that the mitochondrial electron transport chain generated free radical involvement in the acute compression axonopathy. 'Closed gate exercises' could be of nonpharmacological therapeutic importance, because they reduce neuropathic pain in addition to having an anti-inflammatory effect. Finally, DOMS could have an important ontogenetical role by not just enhancing ability to escape danger to survive in the wild, but also triggering muscle growth.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.