Mental imagery-induced attention modulates pain perception and cortical excitability

BMC Neuroscience

Felipe Fregni²  Andrea L Santos Portilla¹  Vanessa Suarez-Contreras¹  Magdalena Sarah Volz³ 

[1] Laboratory of Neuromodulation, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 125 Nashua Street #727, Boston 02114, MA, USA;Department of Neurology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA;Charité - Universitätsmedizin, Berlin, Germany

关键词: Cortical excitability;    Pain catastrophizing;    Mental imagery;    Attention;    Pain;   

Others  :  1170554
DOI  :  10.1186/s12868-015-0146-6

 received in 2014-11-27, accepted in 2015-02-18,  发布年份 2015

【 摘 要 】

Background

Mental imagery is a powerful method of altering brain activity and behavioral outcomes, such as performance of cognition and motor skills. Further, attention and distraction can modulate pain-related neuronal networks and the perception of pain. This exploratory study examined the effects of mental imagery-induced attention on pressure pain threshold and cortical plasticity using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). This blinded, randomized, and parallel-design trial comprised 30 healthy right-handed male subjects. Exploratory statistical analyses were performed using ANOVA and t-tests for pain and TMS assessments. Pearson’s correlation was used to analyze the association between changes in pain threshold and cortical excitability.

Results

In the analysis of pain outcomes, there was no significant interaction effect on pain between group versus time. In an exploratory analysis, we only observed a significant effect of group for the targeted left hand (ANOVA with pain threshold as the dependent variable and time and group as independent variables). Although there was only a within-group effect of mental imagery on pain, further analyses showed a significant positive correlation of changes in pain threshold and cortical excitability (motor-evoked potentials via TMS).

Conclusions

Mental imagery has a minor effect on pain modulation in healthy subjects. Its effects appear to differ compared with chronic pain, leading to a small decrease in pain threshold. Assessments of cortical excitability confirmed that these effects are related to the modulation of pain-related cortical circuits. These exploratory findings suggest that neuronal plasticity is influenced by pain and that the mental imagery effects on pain depend on the state of central sensitization.

【 授权许可】

   
2015 Volz et al.; licensee BioMed Central.

【 图 表 】

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