Department of Prosthodontics, College of Dentistry, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32610-0435, USA.
J Neurosci Methods. 2010 Apr 30;188(1):83-8. doi: 10.1016/j.jneumeth.2010.02.001. Epub 2010 Feb 10.
A method for testing changes in pain sensitivity of human subjects over the course of prolonged thermal stimulation is introduced. It uses a Peltier-device-based thermode to generate a thermal contact stimulus, an electronic visual analog scale to continuously record the pain intensity and a system that controls selected stimulus parameters (temperature or pulse timing) as a function of the pain intensity rating. The stimulus parameter that is modulated to clamp pain intensity near a desired setpoint serves as the response variable and is used to infer pain sensitivity. Advantages of the method are that it automatically finds the stimulus magnitude that elicits predetermined pain intensity, regardless of how sensitive or insensitive the subject is, and it allows prolonged stimulation, because it does not allow pain intensity to escalate to unacceptable levels due to progressive sensitization. The subject is blinded regarding experimental effects because average pain intensity remains constant regardless of sensitization or pharmacological interventions.
本文介绍了一种用于测试人类受试者在长时间热刺激过程中疼痛敏感性变化的方法。该方法使用基于珀耳帖器件的热模头产生热接触刺激，使用电子视觉模拟量表连续记录疼痛强度，并使用控制系统根据疼痛强度评分来调节选定的刺激参数（温度或脉冲定时）。被调节以将疼痛强度钳制在期望设定点附近的刺激参数作为响应变量，用于推断疼痛敏感性。该方法的优点是，它可以自动找到引起预定疼痛强度的刺激幅度，而与受试者的敏感性如何无关，并且它允许长时间刺激，因为它不会因渐进性敏化而导致疼痛强度上升到不可接受的水平。由于平均疼痛强度保持不变，无论敏化或药物干预如何，受试者对实验效果都是盲目的。
