Frontal lobe hemodynamic responses to painful stimulation: a potential brain marker of nociception
Date
2016
Authors
Aasted, C.M.
YĆ¼cel, Meryem A.
Steele, S.C.
Peng, K.
Boas, David A.
Becerra, L.
Borsook, David
Version
Published version
OA Version
Citation
C.M. Aasted, M.A. YĆ¼cel, S.C. Steele, K. Peng, D.A. Boas, L. Becerra, D. Borsook. 2016. "Frontal lobe hemodynamic responses to painful stimulation: a potential brain marker of nociception." PloS one, Volume 11, Issue 11:e0165226. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0165226
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to use functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to examine patterns of both activation and deactivation that occur in the frontal lobe in response to noxious stimuli. The frontal lobe was selected because it has been shown to be activated by noxious stimuli in functional magnetic resonance imaging studies. The brain region is located behind the forehead which is devoid of hair, providing a relative ease of placement for fNIRS probes on this area of the head. Based on functional magnetic resonance imaging studies showing blood-oxygenation-level dependent changes in the frontal lobes, we evaluated functional near-infrared spectroscopy measures in response to two levels of electrical pain in awake, healthy human subjects (n = 10; male = 10). Each subject underwent two recording sessions separated by a 30-minute resting period. Data collected from 7 subjects were analyzed, containing a total of 38/36 low/high intensity pain stimuli for the first recording session and 27/31 pain stimuli for the second session. Our results show that there is a robust and significant deactivation in sections of the frontal cortices. Further development and definition of the specificity and sensitivity of the approach may provide an objective measure of nociceptive activity in the brain that can be easily applied in the surgical setting.
Description
License
Copyright: Ā© 2016 Aasted et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.