Zis Panagiotis, Liampas Andreas, Artemiadis Artemios, Tsalamandris Gabriela, Neophytou Panagiota, Unwin Zoe, Kimiskidis Vasilios K, Hadjigeorgiou Georgios M, Varrassi Giustino, Zhao Yifan, Sarrigiannis Ptolemaios Georgios
Medical School, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus.
Medical School, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
Pain Ther. 2022 Jun;11(2):369-380. doi: 10.1007/s40122-022-00372-2. Epub 2022 Mar 23.
The universality and complexity of pain, which is highly prevalent, yield its significance to both patients and researchers. Developing a non-invasive tool that can objectively measure pain is of the utmost importance for clinical and research purposes. Traditionally electroencephalography (EEG) has been mostly used in epilepsy; however, over the recent years EEG has become an important non-invasive clinical tool that has helped increase our understanding of brain network complexities and for the identification of areas of dysfunction. This review aimed to investigate the role of EEG recordings as potential biomarkers of pain perception.
A systematic search of the PubMed database led to the identification of 938 papers, of which 919 were excluded as a result of not meeting the eligibility criteria, and one article was identified through screening of the reference lists of the 19 eligible studies. Ultimately, 20 papers were included in this systematic review.
Changes of the cortical activation have potential, though the described changes are not always consistent. The most consistent finding is the increase in the delta and gamma power activity. Only a limited number of studies have looked into brain networks encoding pain perception.
Although no robust EEG biomarkers of pain perception have been identified yet, EEG has potential and future research should be attempted. Designing strong research protocols, controlling for potential risk of biases, as well as investigating brain networks rather than isolated cortical changes will be crucial in this attempt.
疼痛具有普遍性和复杂性，且极为常见，这使其对患者和研究人员都具有重要意义。开发一种能够客观测量疼痛的非侵入性工具对于临床和研究目的而言至关重要。传统上，脑电图（EEG）主要用于癫痫研究；然而，近年来，EEG已成为一种重要的非侵入性临床工具，有助于增进我们对脑网络复杂性的理解，并用于识别功能障碍区域。本综述旨在探讨EEG记录作为疼痛感知潜在生物标志物的作用。
对PubMed数据库进行系统检索，共识别出938篇论文，其中919篇因不符合纳入标准而被排除，通过筛选19项符合条件研究的参考文献列表又识别出1篇文章。最终，20篇论文被纳入本系统综述。
皮质激活的变化具有潜在意义，尽管所描述的变化并不总是一致。最一致的发现是δ波和γ波功率活动增加。仅有少数研究探讨了编码疼痛感知的脑网络情况。
尽管尚未确定可靠的疼痛感知EEG生物标志物，但EEG具有潜力，未来应尝试开展相关研究。设计强有力的研究方案、控制潜在的偏倚风险以及研究脑网络而非孤立的皮质变化在这一尝试中将至关重要。
