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Elsevier, Clinical Neurophysiology, 10(124), p. 2016-2024

DOI: 10.1016/j.clinph.2013.04.009

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Effects of non-pharmacological pain treatments on brain states

This paper is available in a repository.
This paper is available in a repository.

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Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To (1) evaluate the effects of a single session of four non-pharmacological pain interventions, relative to a sham tDCS procedure, on pain and electroencephalogram- (EEG-) assessed brain oscillations, and (2) determine the extent to which procedure-related changes in pain intensity are associated with changes in brain oscillations. METHODS: 30 individuals with spinal cord injury and chronic pain were given an EEG and administered measures of pain before and after five procedures (hypnosis, meditation, transcranial direct current stimulation [tDCS], neurofeedback, and a control sham tDCS procedure). RESULTS: Each procedure was associated with a different pattern of changes in brain activity, and all active procedures were significantly different from the control procedure in at least three bandwidths. Very weak and mostly non-significant associations were found between changes in EEG-assessed brain activity and pain. CONCLUSIONS: Different non-pharmacological pain treatments have distinctive effects on brain oscillation patterns. However, changes in EEG-assessed brain oscillations are not significantly associated with changes in pain, and therefore such changes do not appear useful for explaining the benefits of these treatments. SIGNIFICANCE: The results provide new findings regarding the unique effects of four non-pharmacological treatments on pain and brain activity.