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Cited by 222Pain Mechanisms and TreatmentsPain Management and TreatmentPain Management and Placebo Effect

Operculoinsular cortex encodes pain intensity at the earliest stages of cortical processing as indicated by amplitude of laser-evoked potentials in humans

Iannetti, G.D., Zambreanu, L., Cruccu, G., Tracey, I.·2005·Neuroscience
DOI 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2004.10.035
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Abstract

Converging evidence from different functional imaging studies indicates that the intensity of activation of different nociceptive areas (including the operculoinsular cortex, the primary somatosensory cortex, and the anterior cingulate gyrus) correlates with perceived pain intensity in the human brain. Brief radiant laser pulses excite selectively Adelta and C nociceptors in the superficial skin layers, provide a purely nociceptive input, and evoke brain potentials (laser-evoked potentials, LEPs) that are commonly used to assess nociceptive pathways in physiological and clinical studies. Adelta-related LEPs are constituted of different components. The earliest is a lateralised, small negative component (N1) which could be generated by the operculoinsular cortex. The major negative component (N2) seems to be mainly the result of activation in the bilateral operculoinsular cortices and contralateral primary somatosensory cortex, and it is followed by a positive component (P2) probably generated by the cingulate gyrus. Currently, early and late LEP components are considered to be differentially sensitive to the subjective variability of pain perception: the late N2-P2 complex strongly correlates with perceived pain, whereas the early N1 component is thought to be a pre-perceptual sensory response. To obtain physiological information on the roles of the pain-related brain areas in healthy humans, we examined the relationship between perceived pain intensity and latency and amplitude of the early (N1) and late (N2, P2) LEP components. We found that the amplitude of the N1 component correlated significantly with the subjective pain ratings, both within and between subjects. Furthermore, we showed that the N2 and P2 late LEP components are differentially sensitive to the perceived sensation, and demonstrated that the N2 component mainly explains the previously described correlation between perceived pain and the amplitude of the N2-P2 vertex complex of LEPs. Our findings confirm the notion that pain intensity processing is distributed over several brain areas, and suggest that the intensity coding of a noxious stimulus occurs already at the earliest stage of perception processing, in the operculoinsular region and, possibly, the primary somatosensory area.

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  • The early N1 component reflects activity of cortical generators in the contralateral operculoinsular and primary somatosensory cortices and is largely driven by the magnitude of ascending nociceptive input, representing an early stage of sensory processing before the perceptual outcome is determined.

    “The early N1 component, reflecting the activity of cortical generators in the contralateral operculoinsular and primary somatosensory cortices 30, 63, is largely driven by the magnitude of the ascending nociceptive input, representing an early stage of sensory processing before the perceptual outcome of the nociceptive input is determined 48, 64, 65.”

    From The Analgesic Effect of Oxytocin in Humans: A Double‐Blind, Placebo‐Controlled Cross‐Over Study Using Laser‐Evoked Potentials (2016) · cites this paper as [65]

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Authors
Iannetti, G. D., Zambreanu, L., Cruccu, G., & Tracey, I.
Affiliations
  • University of Oxford (GB)
  • Sapienza University of Rome (IT)
Corresponding author
Iannetti, G.D.
ORCID
Venue
Neuroscience
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2005-01
Volume
131
Issue
1
Pages
199-208
ISSN
0306-4522 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/j.neuroscience.2004.10.035
OpenAlex
W1983269681
Cited by
222
References
51
Citations by year
2026: 6 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 13 · 2018: 12 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 15 · 2015: 20 · 2014: 10 · 2013: 11 · 2012: 13
FWCI
4.52
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
www.elsevier.com/tdm/userlicense/1.0/ (tdm)
Locations
  • Neuroscience (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
  • IRIS Research product catalog (Sapienza University of Rome) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Pain Mechanisms and Treatments
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine › Pain Management and Treatment
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Pain Management and Placebo Effect
Keywords
pain intensity, laser-evoked potentials, nociception, primary somatosensory cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, N1 component, pain perception, subjective pain ratings, nociceptive pathways
MeSH terms
Adult, Afferent Pathways, Brain, Electroencephalography, Evoked Potentials, Female, Humans, Lasers, Male, Nociceptors, Pain, Pain Measurement, Physical Stimulation, Scalp, Visual Cortex

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