Key result
Radiant-heat laser stimuli evoked pain perception that significantly declined across sessions and demonstrated moderate test-retest reliability (ICC 0.657), coupled with decreased brain responses in regions responsible for nociceptive processing.
Why the study?
The test-retest reliability of laser-evoked pain perception and its associated brain responses across sessions remained unclear.
Effect estimate: ICC 0.657 (95% CI 0.233-0.854)
p-value: p=<0.001
Laser-evoked pain perception and associated brain responses show considerable across-session variability, which should be accounted for in experimental designs and clinical evaluations.
Laser-evoked pain measures need cautious single-session interpretation; leaves open standardization for multi-session pain research.
Pain perception is a subjective experience and highly variable across time. Brain responses evoked by nociceptive stimuli are highly associated with pain perception and also showed considerable variability. To date, the test-retest reliability of laser-evoked pain perception and its associated brain responses across sessions remain unclear. Here, an experiment with a within-subject repeated-measures design was performed in 22 healthy volunteers. Radiant-heat laser stimuli were delivered on subjects' left-hand dorsum in two sessions separated by 1-5 days. We observed that laser-evoked pain perception was significantly declined across sessions, coupled with decreased brain responses in the bilateral primary somatosensory cortex (S1), right primary motor cortex, supplementary motor area, and middle cingulate cortex. Intraclass correlation coefficients between the two sessions showed "fair" to "moderate" test-retest reliability for pain perception and brain responses. Additionally, we observed lower resting-state brain activity in the right S1 and lower resting-state functional connectivity between right S1 and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in the second session than the first session. Altogether, being possibly influenced by changes of baseline mental state, laser-evoked pain perception and brain responses showed considerable across-session variability. This phenomenon should be considered when designing experiments for laboratory studies and evaluating pain abnormalities in clinical practice.
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Bi et al. (2021) studied Healthy volunteers (n=22). Radiant-heat laser stimuli vs. Session 1 (T1) was evaluated on Test-retest reliability of pain rating (Intraclass Correlation Coefficient) (ICC 0.657, 95% CI 0.233-0.854, p=<0.001). Radiant-heat laser stimuli evoked pain perception that significantly declined across sessions and demonstrated moderate test-retest reliability (ICC 0.657), coupled with decreased brain responses in regions responsible for nociceptive processing.
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