Abstract
Nociceptive stimuli can induce a transient suppression of electroencephalographic
oscillations in the alpha frequency band (ie, alpha event-related desynchronization,
α-ERD). Here we investigated whether α-ERD could be functionally distinguished in
2 temporally and spatially segregated subcomponents as suggested by previous studies.
In addition, we tested whether the degree of dependence of nociceptive-induced α-ERD
magnitude on the prestimulus α-power would have been larger than the degree of dependence
on the poststimulus α-power. Our findings confirmed the dissociation between a sensory-related
α-ERD maximally distributed over contralateral central electrodes, and a task-related
α-ERD (possibly affected by motor-related activity), maximally distributed at posterior
parietal and occipital electrodes. The cortical sources of these activities were estimated
to be located at the level of sensorimotor and bilateral occipital cortices, respectively.
Importantly, the time course of the α-ERD revealed that functional segregation emerged
only at late latencies (400 to 750 ms) whereas topographic similarity was observed
at earlier latencies (250 to 350 ms). Furthermore, the nociceptive-induced α-ERD magnitude
was significantly more dependent on prestimulus than poststimulus α-power. Altogether
these findings provide direct evidence that the nociceptive-induced α-ERD reflects
the summation of sensory-related and task-related cortical processes, and that prestimulus
fluctuations can remarkably influence the non-phase-locked nociceptive α-ERD.
Perspective
Present results extend the functional understanding of α-oscillation suppression during
pain perception and demonstrate the influence of prestimulus variability on this cortical
phenomenon. This work has the potential to guide pain clinicians in a more accurate
interpretation on physiological and psychological modulations of α-oscillations.
Key words
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Article info
Publication history
Accepted:
October 9,
2012
Received in revised form:
October 3,
2012
Received:
March 20,
2012
Footnotes
L.H. and W.P. contributed equally to this work.
L.H. was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31200856), Natural Science Foundation Project of CQ CSTC, and Doctoral Foundation of Southwest University (SWU111079). W.P. and Y.H. were partially supported by The University of Hong Kong CRCG Seed Fund. Z.Z. was supported by the Hong Kong SAR Research Grants Council (HKU762111M) and the University of Hong Kong CRCG Seed Fund.
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
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Copyright
© 2013 American Pain Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
