Most often the radiculopathy found in the patients are located in the cervical spine, most commonly affecting C6-C8 spinal nerves.

Certain injuries can also lead to radiculopathy. These injuries include lifting heavy objects improperly or suffering from a minor trauma such as a car accident. Less common causes of radiculopathy include injury caused by tumor (which can compress nerve roots locally) and diabetes (which can effectively cause ischemia or lack of blood flow to nerves).

Radiculopathy is a mechanical compression of a nerve root usually at the exit foramen or lateral recess. It may be secondary to degenerative disc disease, osteoarthritis, facet joint degeneration/hypertrophy, ligamentous hypertrophy, spondylolisthesis, or a combination of these factors. Rarer causes of radiculopathy may include radiation, diabetes mellitus, neoplastic disease, or any meningeal-based disease process. Second-stage Lyme meningitis resembles aseptic meningitis and is often associated with radiculopathies.

Polyradiculoneuropathy describes a condition in which polyneuropathy and polyradiculopathy occur together. An example is Guillain–Barré syndrome.

Treatment with a single course of intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) infusions has been demonstrated to be a potentially effective treatment (reported to have caused prolonged remission in a case associated with systemic lupus (Systemic lupus erythematosus) ).

There are a number of systemic diseases that may involve dyspepsia, including coronary disease, congestive heart failure, diabetes mellitus, hyperparathyroidism, thyroid disease, and chronic renal disease.

Psychosomatic and cognitive factors are important in the evaluation of patients with chronic dyspepsia. The psychiatric hypothesis holds that the symptoms of dyspepsia may be due to depression, increased anxiety, or a somatization disorder. Epidemiological studies suggest there is an association between functional dyspepsia and psychological disorders. Symptoms of neurosis, anxiety, hypochondriasis, and depression are more common in patients being evaluated for unexplained gastrointestinal complaints than in healthy controls. Comparisons of functional and organic dyspepsia have demonstrated that patients with functional dyspepsia are less likely to have decreased stress or anxiety at 1-year follow-up after being reassured of having no serious disease. This suggests that functional dyspepsia symptoms are long-lasting, compared with those of organic dyspepsia, and that the emotional ties are strong.