Neuroimaging Assessment of Pain

Overview

Journal Neurotherapeutics

Specialty Neurology

Date 2022 Jul 28

PMID 35902535

Authors

Jing Luo

Hui-Qi Zhu

Bo Gou

Xue-Qiang Wang

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience. Understanding the neural mechanisms of acute and chronic pain and the brain changes affecting pain factors is important for finding pain treatment methods. The emergence and progress of non-invasive neuroimaging technology can help us better understand pain at the neural level. Recent developments in identifying brain-based biomarkers of pain through advances in advanced imaging can provide some foundations for predicting and detecting pain. For example, a neurologic pain signature (involving brain regions that receive nociceptive afferents) and a stimulus intensity-independent pain signature (involving brain regions that do not show increased activity in proportion to noxious stimulus intensity) were developed based on multivariate modeling to identify processes related to the pain experience. However, an accurate and comprehensive review of common neuroimaging techniques for evaluating pain is lacking. This paper reviews the mechanism, clinical application, reliability, strengths, and limitations of common neuroimaging techniques for assessing pain to promote our further understanding of pain.

Citing Articles

Chronic pain in the elderly: Exploring cellular and molecular mechanisms and therapeutic perspectives.

Garcia-Dominguez M Front Aging. 2024; 5:1477017.

PMID: 39328834 PMC: 11424521. DOI: 10.3389/fragi.2024.1477017.

Post-thoracotomy pain syndrome in the era of minimally invasive thoracic surgery.

Miyazaki T, Doi R, Matsumoto K J Thorac Dis. 2024; 16(5):3422-3430.

PMID: 38883660 PMC: 11170434. DOI: 10.21037/jtd-24-158.

Can diffuse reflectance spectroscopy identify shuntodynia in pediatric hydrocephalus patients?.

Kline O, Vishwanath K, Colbrunn B, Peachman A, Zhang J, Vadivelu S J Biomed Opt. 2024; 29(3):037002.

PMID: 38476219 PMC: 10929735. DOI: 10.1117/1.JBO.29.3.037002.

Multilevel Pain Assessment with Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy: Evaluating Δ and Δ Measures for Comprehensive Analysis.

Khan M, Sousani M, Hirachan N, Joseph C, Ghahramani M, Chetty G Sensors (Basel). 2024; 24(2).

PMID: 38257551 PMC: 11154386. DOI: 10.3390/s24020458.

Pediatric Neural Changes to Physical and Emotional Pain After Intensive Interdisciplinary Pain Treatment: A Pilot Study.

Lepping R, Hoffart C, Bruce A, Taylor J, Mardis N, Lim S medRxiv. 2023; .

PMID: 37873243 PMC: 10593005. DOI: 10.1101/2023.10.03.23295921.

References

Gonzalez-Roldan A, Martinez-Jauand M, Munoz-Garcia M, Sitges C, Cifre I, Montoya P . Temporal dissociation in the brain processing of pain and anger faces with different intensities of emotional expression. Pain. 2011; 152(4):853-859. DOI: 10.1016/j.pain.2010.12.037. View

Aihara T, Shimokawa T, Ogawa T, Okada Y, Ishikawa A, Inoue Y . Resting-State Functional Connectivity Estimated With Hierarchical Bayesian Diffuse Optical Tomography. Front Neurosci. 2020; 14:32. PMC: 7005139. DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2020.00032. View

Cifre I, Sitges C, Fraiman D, Munoz M, Balenzuela P, Gonzalez-Roldan A . Disrupted functional connectivity of the pain network in fibromyalgia. Psychosom Med. 2012; 74(1):55-62. DOI: 10.1097/PSY.0b013e3182408f04. View

Friebe M, Sanchez J, Balakrishnan S, Illanes A, Nagaraj Y, Odenbach R . In-room ultrasound fusion combined with fully compatible 3D-printed holding arm - rethinking interventional MRI. Med Devices (Auckl). 2018; 11:77-85. PMC: 5859896. DOI: 10.2147/MDER.S150459. View

Woo C, Chang L, Lindquist M, Wager T . Building better biomarkers: brain models in translational neuroimaging. Nat Neurosci. 2017; 20(3):365-377. PMC: 5988350. DOI: 10.1038/nn.4478. View

Letzen J, Boissoneault J, Sevel L, Robinson M . Test-retest reliability of pain-related functional brain connectivity compared with pain self-report. Pain. 2015; 157(3):546-551. PMC: 4752858. DOI: 10.1097/j.pain.0000000000000356. View

Goldstein A, Zeev-Wolf M, Herz N, Ablin J . Brain responses to other people's pain in fibromyalgia: a magnetoencephalography study. Clin Exp Rheumatol. 2019; 37 Suppl 116(1):70-74. View

Casey K, Morrow T, Lorenz J, Minoshima S . Temporal and spatial dynamics of human forebrain activity during heat pain: analysis by positron emission tomography. J Neurophysiol. 2001; 85(2):951-9. DOI: 10.1152/jn.2001.85.2.951. View

Shao S, Shen K, Yu K, Wilder-Smith E, Li X . Frequency-domain EEG source analysis for acute tonic cold pain perception. Clin Neurophysiol. 2012; 123(10):2042-9. DOI: 10.1016/j.clinph.2012.02.084. View

10.

Berman S, Naliboff B, Suyenobu B, Labus J, Stains J, Ohning G . Reduced brainstem inhibition during anticipated pelvic visceral pain correlates with enhanced brain response to the visceral stimulus in women with irritable bowel syndrome. J Neurosci. 2008; 28(2):349-59. PMC: 6670525. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2500-07.2008. View

11.

Shukla S, Torossian A, Duann J, Leung A . The analgesic effect of electroacupuncture on acute thermal pain perception--a central neural correlate study with fMRI. Mol Pain. 2011; 7:45. PMC: 3130679. DOI: 10.1186/1744-8069-7-45. View

12.

Garcia-Larrea L, Peyron R, Mertens P, Gregoire M, Lavenne F, LE Bars D . Electrical stimulation of motor cortex for pain control: a combined PET-scan and electrophysiological study. Pain. 1999; 83(2):259-73. DOI: 10.1016/s0304-3959(99)00114-1. View

13.

Schmid J, Theysohn N, Ga F, Benson S, Gramsch C, Forsting M . Neural mechanisms mediating positive and negative treatment expectations in visceral pain: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study on placebo and nocebo effects in healthy volunteers. Pain. 2013; 154(11):2372-2380. DOI: 10.1016/j.pain.2013.07.013. View

14.

Gustin S, Peck C, Cheney L, Macey P, Murray G, Henderson L . Pain and plasticity: is chronic pain always associated with somatosensory cortex activity and reorganization?. J Neurosci. 2012; 32(43):14874-84. PMC: 6704842. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1733-12.2012. View

15.

Quiton R, Keaser M, Zhuo J, Gullapalli R, Greenspan J . Intersession reliability of fMRI activation for heat pain and motor tasks. Neuroimage Clin. 2014; 5:309-21. PMC: 4141974. DOI: 10.1016/j.nicl.2014.07.005. View

16.

Gross J . Magnetoencephalography in Cognitive Neuroscience: A Primer. Neuron. 2019; 104(2):189-204. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2019.07.001. View

17.

Li C, Yang J, Park K, Wu H, Hu S, Zhang W . Prolonged repeated acupuncture stimulation induces habituation effects in pain-related brain areas: an FMRI study. PLoS One. 2014; 9(5):e97502. PMC: 4018444. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0097502. View

18.

Ren X, Lu J, Liu X, Shen C, Zhang X, Ma X . Decreased prefrontal brain activation during verbal fluency task in patients with somatoform pain disorder: An exploratory multi-channel near-infrared spectroscopy study. Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry. 2017; 78:153-160. DOI: 10.1016/j.pnpbp.2017.05.006. View

19.

Hall M, Kidgell D, Perraton L, Morrissey J, Jaberzadeh S . Pain Induced Changes in Brain Oxyhemoglobin: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Functional NIRS Studies. Pain Med. 2021; 22(6):1399-1410. DOI: 10.1093/pm/pnaa453. View

20.

Davis K, Flor H, Greely H, Iannetti G, Mackey S, Ploner M . Brain imaging tests for chronic pain: medical, legal and ethical issues and recommendations. Nat Rev Neurol. 2017; 13(10):624-638. DOI: 10.1038/nrneurol.2017.122. View