Journal Article

Commentary: Prestimulus Theta Oscillations and Connectivity Modulate Pain Perception

Nicolardi, Valentina, Spinelli, Giuseppe

2016

Overview

[...]while Taesler and Rose provided relevant additions to the literature on pain processing, a direct comparison with these latter studies is still difficult to be assessed given the different neurocognitive mechanisms underlying the processing of pain in individuals with chronic sensitization respect to healthies (Bushnell et al., 2013). [...]the pre-stimulus theta-band power increase can be viewed from a different perspective when considering that the paradigm of Taesler and Rose, by delivering in each trial a constant painful stimulation after a fixation-cross, induces a strong “stimulus–stimulus” association. [...]given that both insular cortices and various regions of the middle-frontal cortex (Ridderinkhof et al., 2004), are linked to pre- and post-conflict monitoring (Yeung et al., 2004), feedback-monitoring and reinforcement-learning (Holroyd and Coles, 2002) via increasing theta band oscillations (Cohen, 2014), we argue that the pain processing system can share the same temporal dynamics as the performance (and conflict) monitoring system (Shackman et al., 2011). [...]the theta-related connectivity pattern showed by Taesler and Rose, seems to resemble the pattern of activation usually found when the so-called “saliency network”—mostly governed by the anterior insular cortex—attempt to elicit a (re)orienting response before negative outcomes. [...]it is arguably known how the activation of the anterior insular activity, by signaling an increased likelihood to receive unfavorable outcomes, aims at rapidly calling for additional cognitive control or behavioral adjustment (Klein et al., 2007). [...]considering that in Taesler and Rose, participants were always stimulated at their own painful threshold, the activity in the insular cortices could have governed, via theta increase, two different processes, namely: (i) the integration of personally/motivationally information linked to painful stimulation and (ii) the preparatory allocation of cognitive and physical resources of salience processing.

• Publisher: Frontiers Research Foundation,Frontiers Media S.A
• Subject: Cognition / Cognition & reasoning / Cognitive ability / Cortex (frontal) / Cortex (insular) / Cortex (temporal) / Electrodes / Geographical variations / Neural networks / Neuroscience / Orienting response / Pain / Pain perception / Theta rhythms