Unimodal and crossmodal extinction of nociceptive stimuli in healthy volunteers
(2018) IASP - World Congress on Pain — Location: Boston, Massachusetts (12.September.2018)
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- Abstract
- Aim of investigation: Nociception, the physiological mechanisms specifically processing information about noxious and potentially painful stimuli, has the function to warn the brain about potential body damages (interoception) and about the stimuli that might cause of such damages (exteroception). The exteroceptive function of nociception is thought to rely on multisensory processes integrating the perception of the body with that of its surrounding space. To investigate this hypothesis, we took advantage of the extinction phenomenon, usually observed in patients with lesion to one cortical hemisphere, characterized by the inability to report the perception of a stimulus when it is administrated simultaneously with a stimulus presented in the opposite side of space. We hypothesized that the perception of nociceptive stimuli presented at the detection threshold is influenced by the occurrence of non-nociceptive stimuli and their spatial location. Methods: In several experiments, participants were asked to report the perception of nociceptive stimuli applied on hand dorsum at the detection threshold using intra-epidermal electrical stimulation. Stimuli were delivered either alone (single condition) or with another stimulus (double condition). This other stimulus could be a nociceptive stimulus applied on the opposite hand or a visual stimulus presented either in the same side of space or the opposite side of space as compared to the stimulated hand. Results: As compared to the single condition, the probability to report the nociceptive stimulus was significantly impacted by the occurrence of the double condition: it was decreased when the stimulus was presented in the opposite side of space, and increased when it was presented in the same side of space. Conclusions: This suggests that the perception of nociceptive events does not only depend on the anatomical and functional integrity of the nociceptive pathways but is also influenced by cortical integration of other sensory information about the state of the body and the space around it. In this regard, interpretation of the data from current tools assessing somatosensory deficits in clinical population could be biased if cognitive biases such as those from multisensory interaction are not taken into account and controlled.
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Manfron, L., Filbrich, L., Alessandro Farnè, & Legrain, V. (2018). Unimodal and crossmodal extinction of nociceptive stimuli in healthy volunteers. IASP - World Congress on Pain, Boston, Massachusetts. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/125110