Corticomotor excitability reduction induced by experimental pain remains unaffected by performing a working memory task as compared to staying at rest
Experimental pain inhibits primary motor cortex (M1) excitability. Attenuating pain-related inhibition of M1 excitability may be useful during rehabilitation in individuals with pain. One strategy to attenuate M1 excitability is to influence prefrontal and premotor cortex activity. Working memory ta...
Gespeichert in:
Veröffentlicht in: | Experimental brain research 2019-09, Vol.237 (9), p.2205-2215 |
---|---|
Hauptverfasser: | , , , , , |
Format: | Artikel |
Sprache: | eng |
Schlagworte: | |
Online-Zugang: | Volltext |
Tags: |
Tag hinzufügen
Keine Tags, Fügen Sie den ersten Tag hinzu!
|
Zusammenfassung: | Experimental pain inhibits primary motor cortex (M1) excitability. Attenuating pain-related inhibition of M1 excitability may be useful during rehabilitation in individuals with pain. One strategy to attenuate M1 excitability is to influence prefrontal and premotor cortex activity. Working memory tasks, e.g. the two-back task (TBT), engage prefrontal and premotor cortices and may influence M1 excitability. We hypothesized that performing the TBT during pain would influence pain-related changes in M1 excitability. Participants (
n
= 28) received rigorous training in the TBT before baseline testing. Experimental pain was induced by injecting hypertonic saline into the first dorsal interosseous (FDI) muscle. Participants rated pain intensity on a 0–10 numerical rating scale (NRS) every second min until pain-resolved (PR) during the performance of the TBT (
n
= 14) or during REST (
n
= 14). In the TBT, letters were presented pseudo-randomly, and accuracy and reaction time to identified letters corresponding to letters shown two times back were recorded. M1 excitability was assessed using transcranial magnetic stimulation. Motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) were recorded at baseline, and at PR, PR + 10, PR + 20, and PR + 30 min. Four minutes after hypertonic saline injection, the pain NRS scores were higher in the TBT group than the REST group (
p
= 0.009). No time × group interaction was found for MEPs (
p
= 0.73), but a main effect of time (
p |
---|---|
ISSN: | 0014-4819 1432-1106 |
DOI: | 10.1007/s00221-019-05587-y |