Increased cold and heat pain thresholds influence the thermal grill illusion in schizophrenia

Boettger, Michael Karl; Großmann, David; Bär, Karl‐Jürgen

doi:10.1002/j.1532-2149.2012.00188.x

Cited by 29 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 40 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Although the largest pain response to the TGI was reported when the thermal grill configuration was 18°C/42°C, the thermal grill did not produce a very painful stimulus in pain‐free participants (median 2 on an 11‐point NRS, interquartile range 1 to 5), being below 4 (out of 10), which is generally accepted as the minimum for clinically relevant pain [55]. The reported pain intensity in our study is similar to previous studies investigating the TGI in pain‐free participants, where similar thermal grill configurations produced pain intensity ratings between 7 mm and 47 mm on a 100‐mm VAS [6,8–11,15,16,18,20,21]. Instead, the thermal grill produced an altered sensory experience in our study that manifested as an aversive heat stimulus (approx.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 83%

“…In support of this hypothesis, analyses revealed that the increased temperature differential between the cool and warm bars required for the perception of the TGI in patients with MDD was mainly driven by patients' significant decrease in their CPTs [21]. Similar to patients with MDD, CPTs were significantly decreased, while HPTs as well as thermal grill thresholds were significantly increased in patients with schizophrenia compared with healthy controls [20]. Although cold and warm detection thresholds were not investigated in Boettger and colleagues' [20] study, Jochum and colleagues [54] previously demonstrated that patients with schizophrenia had elevated warm detection thresholds compared with controls, thereby overall supporting the above hypothesis for increased thermal grill thresholds in patients with schizophrenia.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 75%

“…More recently, Boettger and colleagues extended their research of psychological factors and pain perception to major mental disorders, such as major depressive disorder (MDD) [21] and schizophrenia [20]. In these two studies, the response to the TGI was investigated in unmedicated patients with MDD, in healthy controls, and in unmedicated patients with acute paranoid schizophrenia on both the left and right hand for 30 seconds.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Consequently, the TGI of pain is believed to be a purely central phenomenon [6]. To date there have been no systematic studies on the TGI in the relevant population of chronic pain patients [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21]. However, two separate case reports have been published, one in a patient with complex regional pain syndrome (type I) (CPRS1) [22] and one in a patient with multiple sclerosis (MS) [23].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Reduced Response to the Thermal Grill Illusion in Chronic Pain Patients

et al. 2014

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 83%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 75%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Reduced Response to the Thermal Grill Illusion in Chronic Pain Patients

et al. 2014

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The responses point to the ability of the brain to have a ‘pain experience’ in these patients without obvious physical pain. This is of particular interest since schizophrenic patients have a decreased sensitivity to experimental pain (Boettger et al, 2012) and expression of pain (Martins et al, 2011). The basis for such delusions may relate to alterations in dopaminergic signaling involved in salience function (Heinz and Schlagenhauf, 2010).…”

Section: Emotional Pain Without Physical Pain and Pain Relief Withmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pain and analgesia: The value of salience circuits

Borsook

Edwards

Elman

et al. 2013

Progress in Neurobiology

182

147

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Evaluating external and internal stimuli is critical to survival. Potentially tissue-damaging conditions generate sensory experiences that the organism must respond to in an appropriate, adaptive manner (e.g., withdrawal from the noxious stimulus, if possible, or seeking relief from pain and discomfort). The importance we assign to a signal generated by a noxious state, its salience, reflects our belief as to how likely the underlying situation is to impact our chance of survival. Importantly, it has been hypothesized that aberrant functioning of the brain circuits which assign salience values to stimuli may contribute to chronic pain. We describe examples of this phenomenon, including ‘feeling pain’ in the absence of a painful stimulus, reporting minimal pain in the setting of major trauma, having an ‘analgesic’ response in the absence of an active treatment, or reporting no pain relief after administration of a potent analgesic medication, which may provide critical insights into the role that salience circuits play in contributing to numerous conditions characterized by persistent pain. Collectively, a refined understanding of abnormal activity or connectivity of elements within the salience network may allow us to more effectively target interventions to relevant components of this network in patients with chronic pain.

show abstract

Organization of the Thermal Grill Illusion by Spinal Segments

Fardo

Finnerup

Haggard

2018

Annals of Neurology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

ObjectiveA common symptom of neuropathy is the misperception of heat and pain from cold stimuli. Similar cold allodynic sensations can be experimentally induced using the thermal grill illusion (TGI) in humans. It is currently unclear whether this interaction between thermosensory and nociceptive signals depends on spinal or supraspinal integration mechanisms. To address this issue, we developed a noninvasive protocol to assess thermosensory integration across spinal segments.MethodsWe leveraged anatomical knowledge regarding dermatomes and their spinal projections to investigate potential contributions of spinal integration to the TGI. We simultaneously stimulated a pair of skin locations on the arm or lower back using 1 cold (∼20°C) and 1 warm thermode (∼40°C). The 2 thermodes were always separated by a fixed physical distance on the skin, but elicited neural activity across a varying number of spinal segments, depending on which dermatomal boundaries the 2 stimuli spanned.ResultsParticipants consistently overestimated the actual cold temperature on the skin during combined cold and warm stimulation, confirming the TGI effect. The TGI was present when cold and warm stimuli were delivered within the same dermatome, or across dermatomes corresponding to adjacent spinal segments. In striking contrast, no TGI effect was found when cold and warm stimuli projected to nonadjacent spinal segments.InterpretationThese results demonstrate that the strength of the illusion is modulated by the segmental distance between cold and warm afferents. This suggests that both temperature perception and thermal–nociceptive interactions depend upon low‐level convergence mechanisms operating within a single spinal segment and its immediate neighbors. Ann Neurol 2018;84:463–472

show abstract

Increased cold and heat pain thresholds influence the thermal grill illusion in schizophrenia

Cited by 29 publications

References 40 publications

Reduced Response to the Thermal Grill Illusion in Chronic Pain Patients

Reduced Response to the Thermal Grill Illusion in Chronic Pain Patients

Pain and analgesia: The value of salience circuits

Organization of the Thermal Grill Illusion by Spinal Segments

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About