Neuroscience letters
-
Neuroscience letters · Jun 2005
Homotopic and heterotopic effects of endogenous analgesia in healthy volunteers.
Although research on DNIC has revealed the inhibitory effect occurring between two remote pain stimuli, the interrelation between two adjacent painful stimuli has not yet been characterized. In the present study, we used a sample of 40 healthy volunteers to examine the effect of 30-s immersion of the fingers in water of 1 degree C, as a conditioning stimulus, on pain intensities produced by conditioned mechanical punctuate stimuli, applied both adjacent and contralateral to the cooled area. ⋯ The extent of pain reduction following cooling in the cooled and in the uncooled hand was also found to be similar for males and for females (p=0.63). It is concluded that under the conditions of this experiment, EA affects heterotopic and homotopic regions similarly and without gender differences.