Abstract
Attention is an important factor that is able to strongly modulate the experience of pain. In order to differentiate cortical mechanisms underlying subject-driven (i.e., top-down) and stimulus-driven (bottom-up) modes of attentional pain modulation, we recorded electric brain activity in healthy volunteers during painful laser stimulation while spatial attention and stimulus intensity were systematically varied. The subjects’ task was to evaluate the pain intensity at the attended finger, while ignoring laser stimuli delivered to the other finger. Top-down (attention) and bottom up (intensity) influences differed in their effects on oscillatory response components. Attention towards pain induced a decrease in alpha and an increase in gamma band power, localized in the insula. Pain intensity modulated delta, alpha, beta and gamma band power. Source localization revealed stimulus driven modulation in the cingulate gyrus (CG) and somatosensory areas for gamma power changes. Our results indicate that bottom-up and top-down modes of processing exert different effects on pain-induced slow and fast oscillatory activities. Future studies may examine pain-induced oscillations using this paradigm to test for altered attentional pain control in patients with chronic pain.
Highlights
Pain is an aversive experience, which inherently attracts attention, disrupting all ongoing activities and thoughts (Eccleston and Crombez, 1999)
Time-Frequency Analysis of Oscillatory Activity As pain-induced oscillatory response patterns were most pronounced over the central region, statistical analyses at electrode level were performed on the central regions of interest (ROIs)
Our study demonstrates effects of spatial attention and stimulus intensity on pain-induced oscillations as measured by EEG
Summary
Pain is an aversive experience, which inherently attracts attention, disrupting all ongoing activities and thoughts (Eccleston and Crombez, 1999). This feature of pain experience is of evolutionary importance because an immediate action is required if a threat of bodily harm exists. The concept of hypervigilance assumes an abnormal allocation of attentional resources to pain This leads to catastrophizing and a failure to disengage attention from pain thereby promoting increased pain intensity as an indication of maladaptive coping (Crombez et al, 2004)
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