Davis K D, Kwan C L, Crawley A P, Mikulis D J
Department of Surgery, University of Toronto, Toronto Hospital (Western Division), The Toronto Hospital Research Institute, Ontario, Canada.
Neuroreport. 1998 Sep 14;9(13):3019-23. doi: 10.1097/00001756-199809140-00018.
Previous imaging studies of pain used a block design of prolonged (up to 1 min) noxious stimulation that are not well tolerated and subject to temporal interactions. We describe an adaptation of event-related fMRI to study pain with short duration stimuli. Functional images were acquired with a spiral sequence on a 1.5T GE echospeed MRI system of the thalamus, anterior cingulate, insula and second somatosensory cortex during brief (1-3 s) noxious thermal stimulation of the hand of normal volunteers. An MRI-compatible computerized rating system continuously monitored subjects' pain. Brief pain-related activations were clearly identified in the cortex and thalamus with a hemodynamic delay of 3-6 s. These findings demonstrate that brief stimuli combined with on-line pain ratings can be used to study pain with fMRI.
以往关于疼痛的影像学研究采用长时间（长达1分钟）有害刺激的组块设计，这种刺激耐受性不佳且存在时间交互作用。我们描述了一种事件相关功能磁共振成像（fMRI）的改良方法，用于研究短时长刺激下的疼痛。在正常志愿者手部进行短暂（1 - 3秒）有害热刺激期间，使用螺旋序列在1.5T通用电气回声速度MRI系统上采集丘脑、前扣带回、脑岛和第二体感皮层的功能图像。一个与MRI兼容的计算机化评分系统持续监测受试者的疼痛情况。在皮层和丘脑中清晰地识别出与短暂疼痛相关的激活，血流动力学延迟为3 - 6秒。这些发现表明，短暂刺激与在线疼痛评分相结合可用于通过fMRI研究疼痛。
