Effects of local anesthetic infiltration on brain potentials evoked by painful dental stimulation.

The effects of lidocaine 2% infiltration on the brain-evoked potential elicited by painful dental stimulation were observed in human subjects. Both the evoked potential wave form and the subjective pain were eliminated by the local anesthetic in 10 volunteers, whereas saline infiltration under identical conditions in 10 others had no effect. These results support our other observations which indicate that brain-evoked potentials recorded during painful dental stimulation are a reliable physiologic correlate of human pain.