COMT Activity and Hypnotizability

Hypnosis is an effective pain management tool for surgery that can reduce opioid use up to 40%. COMT single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) can predict pain sensitivity and opioid use perioperatively, and may also be associated with hypnotizability or response to hypnotic analgesia. Analyzing COMT haplotypes from DNA extracted from saliva or blood using a giant magnetoresistive (GMR) nanotechnology platform may be faster, less expensive, and at least as accurate as pyrosequencing. This study aims to validate a multi-SNP point-of-care (POC) GMR assay for the rapid genotyping of SNPs predictive of COMT activity, and test the feasibility of using COMT activity as a biomarker for hypnotizability and/or response to hypnotic analgesia.