Nature Neuroscience
5, 1121 - 1122 (2002)
Published online: 7 October 2002; | doi:10.1038/nn955
Neural correlates of prickle sensation: a percept-related fMRI studyK.D. Davis1, 3, G.E. Pope3, A.P. Crawley2, 3
& D.J. Mikulis2, 31
Department of Surgery, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada
2
Department of Medical Imaging, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada
3
Toronto Western Research Institute, Toronto Western Hospital, University Health Network MP14-306, 399 Bathurst Street, Toronto, Ontario M5T 2S8, Canada
Correspondence should be addressed to K.D. Davis kdavis@uhnres.utoronto.caThe painful sensations produced by a laceration, freeze, burn, muscle strain or internal injury are readily distinguishable because each is characterized by a particular sensory quality such as sharp, aching, burning or prickling. We propose that there are specific neural correlates of each pain quality, and here we used a new functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) method to identify time-locked responses to prickle sensations that were evoked by noxious cold stimuli. With percept-related fMRI, we identified prickle-related brain activations in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), insula, secondary somatosensory cortex (S2), prefrontal cortex (PFC), premotor cortex (PMC), caudate nucleus and dorsomedial thalamus, indicating that multiple pain, sensory and motor areas act together to produce the prickle sensation.
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