Dowman R
Department of Psychology, Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY 13699-5825.
Physiol Behav. 1993 Jun;53(6):1163-9. doi: 10.1016/0031-9384(93)90374-o.
This study evaluated the utility of the compound nerve action potential (CAP) and spinal nociceptive withdrawal (R3) reflex in identifying and quantifying peripheral afferent activity evoked by sural nerve stimulation in humans. The results of this work demonstrate that currents less than or equal to that which elicits a just-maximal CAP can be considered purely innocuous; provide further evidence that the R3 is an objective means of identifying noxious stimulus levels; and suggest that current provides the best noninvasive quantitative estimate of afferent activity throughout the innocuous and noxious range. This work also demonstrates that some of the individual variability in the psychophysical function can be attributed to peripheral factors that affect the amount of current reaching the nerve. It is important, therefore, that these peripheral factors be considered when studying individual differences in the psychophysical function generated by electrical stimulation.
本研究评估了复合神经动作电位（CAP）和脊髓伤害性退缩（R3）反射在识别和量化人类腓肠神经刺激诱发的外周传入活动方面的效用。这项工作的结果表明，小于或等于引发刚好最大CAP的电流可被视为纯粹无害；进一步证明R3是识别有害刺激水平的客观手段；并表明电流能在无害和有害范围内提供最佳的非侵入性传入活动定量估计。这项工作还表明，心理物理功能中的一些个体差异可归因于影响到达神经的电流量的外周因素。因此，在研究电刺激产生的心理物理功能的个体差异时，考虑这些外周因素很重要。
