Somatosensory event-related potentials and allocation of attention to pain: Effects of hypnotic analgesia as moderated by hypnotizability level

Laser-evoked potentials to noxious stimulation during hypnotic analgesia and distraction of attention suggest different brain mechanisms of pain control

“…Further research has indicated that these late ERP components also reflect other aspects of stimulus processing, like stimulus probability and habituation, additionally supporting the notion that the magnitudes of these late ERP components more likely reflect cognitive aspects of pain processing than aspects related to the pure sensory properties of nociception~Miltner & Weiss, 1998& Weiss, , 2000 Whereas most studies of the effects of distraction on late ERP components elicited by noxious stimuli have replicated this finding, comparable studies on ERPs to painful stimuli during suggestions of hypnotic analgesia have produced rather inconsistent results. Some studies have reported decreased amplitudes of late ERP components to noxious stimuli when subjects were given hypnotic analgesia as compared to a control condition~Arendt-Nielsen, Zachariae, & Bjerring, 1990;Crawford, Pribram, & Xie, 1993!. However, other studies demonstrated no such decreases of ERP components~Meier, Klucken, Soyka, & Bromm, 1993;Miltner, Braun, & Revenstorf, 1992!. In some studies even larger ERP amplitudes were obtained during hypnotic analgesia~e.g., Sommer, 1966!.…”

Laser‐evoked potentials to noxious stimulation during hypnotic analgesia and distraction of attention suggest different brain mechanisms of pain control

“…Further research has indicated that these late ERP components also reflect other aspects of stimulus processing, like stimulus probability and habituation, additionally supporting the notion that the magnitudes of these late ERP components more likely reflect cognitive aspects of pain processing than aspects related to the pure sensory properties of nociception~Miltner & Weiss, 1998& Weiss, , 2000 Whereas most studies of the effects of distraction on late ERP components elicited by noxious stimuli have replicated this finding, comparable studies on ERPs to painful stimuli during suggestions of hypnotic analgesia have produced rather inconsistent results. Some studies have reported decreased amplitudes of late ERP components to noxious stimuli when subjects were given hypnotic analgesia as compared to a control condition~Arendt-Nielsen, Zachariae, & Bjerring, 1990;Crawford, Pribram, & Xie, 1993!. However, other studies demonstrated no such decreases of ERP components~Meier, Klucken, Soyka, & Bromm, 1993;Miltner, Braun, & Revenstorf, 1992!. In some studies even larger ERP amplitudes were obtained during hypnotic analgesia~e.g., Sommer, 1966!. On the basis of these conflicting results, we suggest that hypnotic analgesia is not adequately explained by attentional mechanisms, but rather reflects some other information processing mechanisms.…”

“…However, in contrast to previous findings reported by Arndt-Nielsen et al~1990! andCrawford et al~1993!, we did not observe significantly reduced late ERP components to painful stimulation while subjects were suggested hypnotic analgesia but only while they were distracted visually from processing the noxious input. This observation gave rise to the hypothesis of the present study that different cognitive processes and different brain mechanisms might organize hypnotic analgesia and distraction of attention during pain processing.…”

“…In addition, these changes helped to make the present study more compatible to the two studies by Arndt-Nielsen et al 1990! andCrawford et al~1993!, who found reduced late ERP components when subjects were exposed to suggestions of hypnotic analgesia like we did when our former subjects were distracted from painful stimulation but not when they were exposed to hypnotic analgesia.…”