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Brain mechanisms supporting discrimination of sensory features of pain: a new model.

ABSTRACT: Pain can be very intense or only mild, and can be well localized or diffuse. To date, little is known as to how such distinct sensory aspects of noxious stimuli are processed by the human brain. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging and a delayed match-to-sample task, we show that discrimination of pain intensity, a nonspatial aspect of pain, activates a ventrally directed pathway extending bilaterally from the insular cortex to the prefrontal cortex. This activation is distinct from the dorsally directed activation of the posterior parietal cortex and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex that occurs during spatial discrimination of pain. Both intensity and spatial discrimination tasks activate highly similar aspects of the anterior cingulate cortex, suggesting that this structure contributes to common elements of the discrimination task such as the monitoring of sensory comparisons and response selection. Together, these results provide the foundation for a new model of pain in which bidirectional dorsal and ventral streams preferentially amplify and process distinct sensory features of noxious stimuli according to top-down task demands.

SUBMITTER: Oshiro Y

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2823474 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Brain mechanisms supporting discrimination of sensory features of pain: a new model.

Oshiro Yoshitetsu Y Quevedo Alexandre S AS McHaffie John G JG Kraft Robert A RA Coghill Robert C RC

The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience 20091101 47

Pain can be very intense or only mild, and can be well localized or diffuse. To date, little is known as to how such distinct sensory aspects of noxious stimuli are processed by the human brain. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging and a delayed match-to-sample task, we show that discrimination of pain intensity, a nonspatial aspect of pain, activates a ventrally directed pathway extending bilaterally from the insular cortex to the prefrontal cortex. This activation is distinct from the d ...[more]

PMID: 19940188

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Project description:Higher-order cognitive processes were shown to rely on the interplay between large-scale neural networks. However, brain networks involved with the capability to split attentional resource over multiple spatial locations and multiple stimuli or sensory modalities have been largely unexplored to date. Here I re-analyzed data from Santangelo et al. (2010) to explore the causal interactions between large-scale brain networks during divided attention. During fMRI scanning, participants monitored streams of visual and/or auditory stimuli in one or two spatial locations for detection of occasional targets. This design allowed comparing a condition in which participants monitored one stimulus/modality (either visual or auditory) in two spatial locations vs. a condition in which participants monitored two stimuli/modalities (both visual and auditory) in one spatial location. The analysis of the independent components (ICs) revealed that dividing attentional resources across two spatial locations necessitated a brain network involving the left ventro- and dorso-lateral prefrontal cortex plus the posterior parietal cortex, including the intraparietal sulcus (IPS) and the angular gyrus, bilaterally. The analysis of Granger causality highlighted that the activity of lateral prefrontal regions were predictive of the activity of all of the posteriors parietal nodes. By contrast, dividing attention across two sensory modalities necessitated a brain network including nodes belonging to the dorsal frontoparietal network, i.e., the bilateral frontal eye-fields (FEF) and IPS, plus nodes belonging to the salience network, i.e., the anterior cingulated cortex and the left and right anterior insular cortex (aIC). The analysis of Granger causality highlights a tight interdependence between the dorsal frontoparietal and salience nodes in trials requiring divided attention between different sensory modalities. The current findings therefore highlighted a dissociation among brain networks implicated during divided attention across spatial locations and sensory modalities, pointing out the importance of investigating effective connectivity of large-scale brain networks supporting complex behavior.

Dataset Information

Brain mechanisms supporting discrimination of sensory features of pain: a new model.

Publications

Brain mechanisms supporting discrimination of sensory features of pain: a new model.

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