Lateralisation of nociceptive processing in the human brain: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study

Youell, Paula D., Wise, Richard Geoffrey ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1700-2144, Bentley, Deborah E., Dickinson, Mark R., King, Terence a., Tracey, Irene and Jones, Anthony K. P. 2004. Lateralisation of nociceptive processing in the human brain: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study. Neuroimage 23 (3) , pp. 1068-1077. 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2004.07.004

Full text not available from this repository.

Abstract

Nociceptive processing within the human brain takes place within two distinct and parallel systems: the lateral and medial pain systems. Current knowledge indicates that the lateral system is involved in processing the sensory-discriminative aspects of pain, and that the medial system is involved in processing the affective-motivational aspects of pain. Hemispheric differences in brain activation (lateralisation) during nociceptive processing were studied to further clarify the division of function between the lateral and medial pain systems. Hemispheric lateralisation was studied by applying painful CO2 laser stimuli of 3-s duration sequentially to the left and right medial lower calves of five normal right-handed human subjects. The resultant brain activity was measured using 3-T functional magnetic resonance imaging, by determining significant changes in blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) signal and applying a general linear modelling approach. Volumes of interest were defined for the primary and secondary somatosensory cortices (SI and SII), the insular cortex, and the thalamus, on individual subjects' high-resolution structural scans. Hemispheric lateralisation was quantified by comparing the level of activation between brain hemispheres within each volume of interest. In SII, no significant hemispheric difference in activation was detected. In the insula, activation was significantly greater in the left hemisphere than the right. In both SI and the thalamus, activation in response to painful stimulation was significantly greater in the hemisphere contralateral to the stimulus, which is consistent with these areas being involved in processing the sensory-discriminative aspects of pain.

Item Type:	Article
Status:	Published
Schools:	Psychology Neuroscience and Mental Health Research Institute (NMHRI)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Sensory-discriminative aspect; Pain; Functional magnetic resonance imaging; Brain
ISSN:	1053-8119
Last Modified:	20 Oct 2022 09:55
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/33516

Citation Data

Cited 43 times in Scopus. View in Scopus. Powered By Scopus® Data

Actions (repository staff only)

Edit Item