Spatial summation of heat pain: a reassessment
- 1 July 1996
- journal article
- Published by Ovid Technologies (Wolters Kluwer Health) in Pain
- Vol. 66 (1), 23-29
- https://doi.org/10.1016/0304-3959(96)02991-0
Abstract
Heat pain threshold is commonly considered to be an 'absolute' value, which is not dependent on the area stimulated. In contrast, suprathreshold heat pain sensation has been shown to be highly dependent on the area stimulated, with considerable spatial summation demonstrated both within and between dermatomes. The present study sought to reevaluate two major issues: (a) Whether nociceptive thresholds are, indeed, independent of stimulation area. (b) Whether the spatial summation of suprathreshold heat pain sensation is independent of threshold changes. Using noxious heat we evaluated nociceptive thresholds and perceived pain intensity for contact areas of 0.25, 2.25, 6.25 and 15.36 cm2. Our results show that considerable spatial summation of heat pain thresholds is obtained and an apparent spatial summation of perceived intensity can also be observed. However, these apparent changes in perceived pain intensity can be accounted for completely by the changes in noxious heat thresholds. Furthermore, when using a stimulus configuration in which stimulation area was increased without changing nociceptive threshold, no spatial summation of perceived pain intensity was seen. Our results suggest that the spatial summation of perceived heat pain intensity can be attributed to reduced heat pain threshold. Furthermore, our findings stress the importance of determining pain thresholds in studies examining the psychophysics of suprathreshold noxious stimuli.Keywords
This publication has 27 references indexed in Scilit:
- Spatial summation in human thermal pain perception: comparison within and between dermatomesPain, 1992
- Spatial summation of chemical irritation and itch produced by topical application of capsaicinPerception & Psychophysics, 1990
- Effects of extraversion and neuroticism on experimental pain, clinical pain, and illness behaviorPain, 1989
- The Effects of Stimulus Area and Adaptation Temperature on Warm and Heat Pain Thresholds in ManInternational Journal of Neuroscience, 1987
- Spatial summation of pre-pain and pain in human teethPain, 1985
- Latencies of chemically evoked discharges in human cutaneous nociceptors and of the concurrent subjective sensationsNeuroscience Letters, 1980
- Spatial Summation of PainJournal of Applied Physiology, 1958
- Pricking Pain Threshold in Different Body Areas.Experimental Biology and Medicine, 1952
- STUDIES ON PAIN. A NEW METHOD FOR MEASURING PAIN THRESHOLD: OBSERVATIONS ON SPATIAL SUMMATION OF PAINJCI Insight, 1940
- STUDIES IN TEMPERATURE SENSATION. III. THE SENSITIVITY OF THE BODY TO HEAT AND THE SPATIAL SUMMATION OF THE END ORGAN RESPONSESJCI Insight, 1937