Pain activates cortical areas in the preterm newborn brain

Abstract

To study the patterns of supraspinal pain processing in neonates, we hypothesized that acute pain causes haemodynamic changes associated with activation of the primary somatosensory cortex. Forty preterm neonates at 28–36 weeks of gestation (mean = 32.0) and at 25–42 h (mean = 30.7) of age w