International journal of psychophysiology : official journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology
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Int J Psychophysiol · Mar 2009
Emotional modulation of autonomic responses to painful trigeminal stimulation.
Dysregulation of supraspinal pain modulation may contribute to chronic pain, including head/face pain. Our laboratory has shown that emotional picture-viewing reliably modulates subjective and physiological pain responses to noxious extracranial (sural nerve) stimulation, suggesting this is a valid method of studying supraspinal modulation. However, to study head/face pain, it is important to determine whether responses evoked by trigeminal stimulation are also modulated. ⋯ Autonomic responses to each shock (pain-evoked HR acceleration, pain-evoked skin conductance response [SCR]) were recorded. Consistent with research on extracranial pain, autonomic responses were larger during unpleasant pictures and smaller during pleasant pictures, with linear trends explaining 23% of the variance in pain-evoked HR and 35% of the variance in pain-evoked SCR (ps<.05). Implications for studying cranial pain are discussed.