Nociceptive local field potentials recorded from the human insula are not specific for nociception
(2015) EFIC Pain Congress 2015 — Location: Vienna, Austria (2.September.2015)
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- Introduction. The insula, especially its posterior portion, is believed to play a specific role in nociception, as its injury can alter pain perception, and because electrical stimulation and epileptic seizures in this region may generate pain-related experiences. Depth recordings in humans have also shown that nociceptive stimuli elicit robust insular local field potentials (LFPs), often considered pain-specific. Taking advantage of the high spatial resolution of direct intracerebral recordings, we assessed whether the insula exhibits pain-specific responses. Methods. Five patients suffering from focal epilepsy were investigated using depth electrodes implanted in a total of 60 insular sites, in both the anterior and posterior insula. Patients received stimuli from four sensory modalities (thermonociceptive, vibrotactile, auditory, visual), and rated their intensity on a numerical scale ranging from 0 to 10. Results. All patients described nociceptive stimuli as painful and pricking. However, the average ratings for stimulus intensity did not differ significantly across modalities. Thermonociceptive stimulation elicited LFPs at the same electrode contacts as non-nociceptive vibrotactile, auditory, and visual stimulation, in the posterior and anterior insula (Fig. 1). A blind source separation procedure based on a probabilistic independent component analysis showed that the LFPs elicited by nociceptive stimulation could be entirely explained by multimodal neural activity also contributing to the LFPs elicited by non-nociceptive stimulation. Conclusion. Insular LFPs elicited by transient nociceptive stimuli reflect multimodal cortical activities unspecific for pain. These responses could reflect mechanisms of attentional re-orientation towards salient stimuli, including, but not limited to, painful stimuli.
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Liberati, G., Klöcker, A., Maia da Cunha Oliveira Safronova, M., Ferrao Santos, S., & Mouraux, A. (2015). Nociceptive local field potentials recorded from the human insula are not specific for nociception. EFIC Pain Congress 2015. Published. EFIC Pain Congress 2015, Vienna, Austria. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/53092 (Original work published 2015)