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Encoding of the subjective intensity of sharp dental pain

Encoding of the subjective intensity of sharp dental pain Abstract This paper is a review and a discussion of our own pain research over the last decade. It is of a methodological and theoretical character and deals with preparation technique, choice of electrodes, control experiments involving pulpotomy and reliability tests of psychophysical methods for pain measurements, and the neuronal population encoding of sharp dental pain. The electrophysiological recording technique selectively picks up electrical activity induced in pulpal A‐delta nerve fihers. The sensation of pain was quantified by means of an inlermodal matching technique, finger span (PAS), in combination with sensory verbal descriptors covering a range from very, very weak to maximal pain. When a cold stimulus, ethyl chloride, was applied on the tooth surface a close agreement was demonstrated between intradental A‐delta nerve activity (INA) and the sensation magnitude of pain (PAS) with respect to curve amplitude and time course. The high covariation of the neural and perceptual response measures indicated a good internal validity and confirmed also the basic soundness and the applicability of the procedures employed. For the purpose of further analyzing the functional relation of INA to PAS we studied specifically the effect of cold stimuh of different intensity on the integrated nerve response. Only sharp, shooting pain was accepted as a sensorial, perceptual correlate of the intradental A‐delta nerve activity. Since an increase in amplitude was generally accompanied by an increase in duration of the responses, the fundamental question was raised how to best describe and characterize the neural and perceptual responses so that they most adequately reflect the information processing of the intensive aspect of sharp dental pain. Three response criteria were used: (i) average response amplitude of INA per second, (ii) peak amplitude of INA and (iii) integral of INA, i.e. the total activity over time. The integral of the INA response curves yielded the Wghest correlation coefficient, with an average value of 0.90. The integrated multi‐unit A‐delta nerve activity appears, thus, to institute the underlying peripheral neurophysiological mechanism of the sensory magnitude of sharp dental pain. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Dental Traumatology Wiley

Encoding of the subjective intensity of sharp dental pain

Ahlquist, M. L; Frmzta, O. G.
Dental Traumatology , Volume 10 (4) – Aug 1, 1994
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References (110)

Publisher
Wiley
Copyright
Copyright © 1994 Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., A Wiley Company
ISSN
1600-4469
eISSN
1600-9657
DOI
10.1111/j.1600-9657.1994.tb00680.x
Publisher site
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Abstract

Abstract This paper is a review and a discussion of our own pain research over the last decade. It is of a methodological and theoretical character and deals with preparation technique, choice of electrodes, control experiments involving pulpotomy and reliability tests of psychophysical methods for pain measurements, and the neuronal population encoding of sharp dental pain. The electrophysiological recording technique selectively picks up electrical activity induced in pulpal A‐delta nerve fihers. The sensation of pain was quantified by means of an inlermodal matching technique, finger span (PAS), in combination with sensory verbal descriptors covering a range from very, very weak to maximal pain. When a cold stimulus, ethyl chloride, was applied on the tooth surface a close agreement was demonstrated between intradental A‐delta nerve activity (INA) and the sensation magnitude of pain (PAS) with respect to curve amplitude and time course. The high covariation of the neural and perceptual response measures indicated a good internal validity and confirmed also the basic soundness and the applicability of the procedures employed. For the purpose of further analyzing the functional relation of INA to PAS we studied specifically the effect of cold stimuh of different intensity on the integrated nerve response. Only sharp, shooting pain was accepted as a sensorial, perceptual correlate of the intradental A‐delta nerve activity. Since an increase in amplitude was generally accompanied by an increase in duration of the responses, the fundamental question was raised how to best describe and characterize the neural and perceptual responses so that they most adequately reflect the information processing of the intensive aspect of sharp dental pain. Three response criteria were used: (i) average response amplitude of INA per second, (ii) peak amplitude of INA and (iii) integral of INA, i.e. the total activity over time. The integral of the INA response curves yielded the Wghest correlation coefficient, with an average value of 0.90. The integrated multi‐unit A‐delta nerve activity appears, thus, to institute the underlying peripheral neurophysiological mechanism of the sensory magnitude of sharp dental pain.

Journal

Dental Traumatology – Wiley

Published: Aug 1, 1994

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