Pain
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Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
The effect of experimental muscle pain on the background electrical brain activity.
The purpose of this project was to investigate whether specific effects in the background activity of the brain associated with the experience of pain can be depicted by means of quantitative electroencephalography (EEG). Lasting pain was induced by intramuscular infusion of hypertonic saline. The infusion was titrated to maintain pain for a sufficient time to obtain enough data for meaningful analysis. ⋯ In fact, Pearson correlation coefficients, as high as 0.92, were found between measures in the frequency band of 35-100 Hz and the beta frequency range. The unexplained variance in the heightened beta cortical power density can be attributed to the vigilance scanning of pain processes. Due to the fact that the statistically significant effect of pain on the topographic EEG measures were not different from imagined pain, we concluded that these effects are non-specific for pain.