Journal of neuroscience research
-
Neuropathic pain is often severe. Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a treatment method for neuropathic pain, but its mechanism of action remains unclear. Patients with neuropathic pain are affected by various stimulations, such as mechanical and cold stimuli, but studies of cold allodynia showed the associated pain to be less than that caused by mechanical stimuli. ⋯ We observed differences in the degree of cold allodynia elicited between a conventional method that measured the number of pain responses and our altered novel method that measured the duration of pain responses. Cold allodynia after DBS did not differ when conventional analysis was applied, but the pain response duration was decreased. We suggest that VPL DBS was partially effective in cold allodynia, implicating complex pathways of pain signaling.