Abstract
Newborn human infants display robust pain behaviour and specific cortical activity following noxious skin stimulation, but it is not known whether brain processing of nociceptive information differs in infants and adults. Imaging studies have emphasised the overlap between infant and adult brain connectome architecture, but electrophysiological analysis of infant brain nociceptive networks can provide further understanding of the functional postnatal development of pain perception. Here we hypothesise that the human infant brain encodes noxious information with different neuronal patterns compared to adults. To test this we compared EEG responses to the same time-locked noxious skin lance in infants aged 0–19 days (n = 18, clinically required) and adults aged 23–48 years (n = 21). Time-frequency analysis revealed that while some features of adult nociceptive network activity are present in infants at longer latencies, including beta-gamma oscillations, infants display a distinct, long latency, noxious evoked 18-fold energy increase in the fast delta band (2–4 Hz) that is absent in adults. The differences in activity between infants and adults have a widespread topographic distribution across the brain. These data support our hypothesis and indicate important postnatal changes in the encoding of mechanical pain in the human brain.
Highlights
Brain areas, which might be especially important for pain and pain expression[16,17]
Noxious stimulation evokes a distinct Event-related potential (ERP) in infants which is not present in adults
This was not significantly different in amplitude between noxious and control stimulation, while the P2 peak was larger in infants compared to adults (N2 – p = 0.99; P2 – p = 0.001)
Summary
Brain areas, which might be especially important for pain and pain expression[16,17]. We used a time-frequency decomposition approach to analyse the noxious-evoked electroencephalographic (EEG) activity in a group of healthy full-term infants. Using a time-locked, clinically required, skin breaking lance to trigger activity in the human infant cortex we analysed the cortical oscillations in the developing brain that are associated with early life noxious stimulation. The results were directly compared to the EEG activity evoked in a group of healthy adult volunteers receiving the same lance stimulus. The results show a clearly defined and distinct pattern of noxious evoked oscillations in the neonate, not seen in the adult. These are specific low frequency oscillations in the delta band (2–4 Hz) and may be important in shaping developing nociceptive networks in the human cortex
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