Higher cortical modulation of pain perception in the human brain: Psychological determinant

Abstract

Pain perception and its genesis in the human brain have been reviewed recently. In the current article, the reports on pain modulation in the human brain were reviewed from higher cortical regulation, i.e. top-down effect, particularly studied in psychological determinants. Pain modulation can be examined by gene therapy, physical modulation, pharmacological modulation, psychological modulation, and pathophysiological modulation. In psychological modulation, this article examined (a) willed determination, (b) distraction, (c) placebo, (d) hypnosis, (e) meditation, (f) qi-gong, (g) belief, and (h) emotions, respectively, in the brain function for pain modulation. In each, the operational definition, cortical processing, neuroimaging, and pain modulation were systematically deliberated. However, not all studies had featured the brain modulation processing but rather demonstrated potential effects on human pain. In our own studies on the emotional modulation on human pain, we observed that emotions could be induced from music melodies or pictures perception for reduction of tonic human pain, mainly in potentiation of the posterior alpha EEG fields, likely resulted from underneath activities of precuneous in regulation of consciousness, including pain perception. To sum, higher brain functions become the leading edge research in all sciences.How to solve the information bit of thinking and feeling in the brain can be the greatest challenge of human intelligence.Application of higher cortical modulation of human pain and suffering can lead to the progress of social humanity and civilization.

The dynamics of pain reappraisal: the joint contribution of cognitive change and mental load

“…Moreover, the neural activity pattern that emerges from these studies is compliant with the one observed in other paradigms that studied the impact of various forms of suggestion or induced beliefs on perceived pain, such as anticipation/placebo (Zubieta & Stohler, 2009) or hypnotic suggestion (Del Casale et al, 2015). This indicates that changing the meaning of potentially threatening or unpleasant stimuli, which is a driving force of reappraisal, may be a more universal mechanism that underlies all forms of higher-level cognitive pain modulation (Barber, 1957;Chen, 2009;van der Meulen, Kamping, & Anton, 2017;Wiech et al, 2008). However, to the best of our knowledge, none of the previous studies analyzed the exact time sequence of the observed neural modulations, which would require a much more accurate temporal resolution than the one offered by the functional resonance imaging (fMRI) that was predominantly used in these studies.…”

The effects of customised brainwave music on orofacial pain induced by orthodontic tooth movement

“…However, inconsistency in spectral features of BWM or CBT was found compared with previous literature on pain mechanisms, which revealed that a decrease in ‘slow’ wave activity (mainly theta and alpha bands) and an increase in ‘fast’ wave activity (beta and gamma bands) are associated with pain perception (Chen, ; Bromm and Lorenz, ; Huber et al , ; Shao et al , ). Furthermore, the reinforcement of theta and alpha activity and the suppression of beta (or gamma) activity have been reported to be associated with the analgesic effects of NF, meditation and hypnosis (Chen, ; Jensen et al , , ). In our study, different from the CBT group with a decreased overall power spectrum, BWM showed increased theta activity in extensive brain regions (frontal, parietal and occipital) and occipital alpha activity, whilst the changes in beta activity were not remarkable (Figure a,b).…”

Hipnose, imobilidade tônica e eletroencefalograma

“…A Hipnologia é hoje um campo de pesquisa promissor, que pode trazer respostas a questões ainda persistentes na Ciência do Comportamento e Neurociências [51][52][53][54] . Estudos recentes sobre mecanismos envolvidos nos processos cognitivo, afetivo e motor têm incluído a hipnose em seus desenhos experimentais, associando-a a técnicas de neuroimagem funcional 39,55 e EEG [56][57][58] . No presente trabalho, uma revisão de literatura sobre as mudanças no EEG que acompanham a "hipnose animal" e a hipnose humana é apresentada.…”