• Lisa Goudman, Liesbeth Daenen, Andre Mouraux, Jo Nijs, Patrick Cras, Nathalie Roussel, Maarten Moens, Iris Coppieters, Eva Huysmans, and Margot De Kooning.
• Department of Neurosurgery, Universitair Ziekenhuis Brussel, Brussels, Belgium.
• Pain Med. 2020 Oct 1; 21 (10): 2553-2563.

ObjectiveLaser-evoked potentials (LEPs) are among the reliable neurophysiological tools to investigate patients with neuropathic pain, as they can provide an objective account of the functional status of thermo-nociceptive pathways. The goal of this study was to explore the functioning of the nociceptive afferent pathways by examining LEPs in patients with chronic whiplash-associated disorders (cWAD), patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), and healthy controls (HCs).DesignCase-control study.SettingA single medical center in Belgium.SubjectsThe LEPs of 21 patients with cWAD, 19 patients with CFS, and 18 HCs were analyzed in this study.MethodsAll participants received brief nociceptive CO2 laser stimuli applied to the dorsum of the left hand and left foot while brain activity was recorded with a 32-channel electroencephalogram (EEG). LEP signals and transient power modulations were compared between patient groups and HCs.ResultsNo between-group differences were found for stimulus intensity, which was supraliminal for Aδ fibers. The amplitudes and latencies of LEP wave components N1, N2, and P2 in patients with cWAD and CFS were statistically similar to those of HCs. There were no significant differences between the time-frequency maps of EEG oscillation amplitude between HCs and both patient populations.ConclusionsEEG responses of heat-sensitive Aδ fibers in patients with cWAD and CFS revealed no significant differences from the responses of HCs. These findings thus do not support a state of generalized central nervous system hyperexcitability in those patients.© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Academy of Pain Medicine. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

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