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Cerebral Cortex Advance Access originally published online on May 18, 2005
Cerebral Cortex 2006 16(3):355-365; doi:10.1093/cercor/bhi114
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© The Author 2005. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oupjournals.org

Temporal Analysis of Cortical Mechanisms for Pain Relief by Tactile Stimuli in Humans

Koji Inui, Takeshi Tsuji and Ryusuke Kakigi

Department of Integrative Physiology, National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Myodaiji, Okazaki 444-8585, Japan

Address correspondence to Koji Inui, Department of Integrative Physiology, National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Myodaiji, Okazaki 444-8585, Japan. Email: inui{at}nips.ac.jp.

The mechanisms by which vibrotactile stimuli relieve pain are not well understood, especially in humans. We recorded cortical magnetic responses to paired noxious (intra-epidermal electrical stimulation, IES) and innocuous (transcutaneous electrical stimulation, TS) stimuli applied to the back at a conditioning–test interval (CTI) of –500 to 500 ms. Results showed that IES-induced responses were remarkably attenuated when TS was applied 20–60 ms later and 0–500 ms earlier than IES (CTI = –60 to 500 ms). Since the signals evoked by IES reached the spinal cord (CTI = –60 to –20 ms conditions) and the cortex (–60 and –40 ms condition) earlier than those evoked by TS, the present results indicate that cortical responses to noxious stimuli can be inhibited by innocuous tactile stimuli at the cortical level, with minimal contribution at the spinal level.

Key Words: intra-epidermal electrical stimulation • magnetoencephalogram, pain relief • transcutaneous electrical stimulation • vibrotactile stimuli


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