Sensory decision theory describes evoked potentials in pain discrimination.

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe relationship between two procedures for assessing laboratory pain. Sensory Decision Theory (SDT) psychophysics and quantification of evoked potentials, was explored to determine whether the two methods measure a common perceptual process. Evoked potentials (EPs) were recorded from vertex while subjects performed a conventional SDT discrimination task that required repetitive judgment of two painful electrical tooth stimuli delivered in random order over trials. Peak‐to‐peak amplitudes and peak latencies were obtained for summation‐averaged waveforms between 50 and 500 msec routed to four categories corresponding to SDT response classifications: hits, false affirmatives, misses and correct rejections. EPs associated with hits and false affirmatives had significantly greater amplitudes at N157‐P237 than those associated with misses and correct rejections. Peak latencies were not related to response categories. These results suggest that N157‐P237 amplitudes associated with dental pain are appropriately described by the SDT psychophysical model, and they demonstrate that the two paradigms assess a single perceptual process associated with pain.