Assessing Offset Analgesia through electrical stimulations in healthy volunteers

Background and aims: Offset Analgesia (OA) is a disproportionally large decrease of pain perception evoked by a slight decrease of a painful cutaneous heat stimulus, resulting in a lower pain perception compared to a simple constant stimulus at the same temperature. This study aimed to investigate the possibility of evoking the same disproportional analgesic effect by applying electrical stimuli. Methods: 24 subjects underwent two control-trials of 30 s constant intensity by applying either heat stimulation at 48 °C or an electrical stimulation at 150% of the individual electrical Pain Detection (ePD) on the volar forearm. OA-trials consisted of a 30 s stimulation, divided into three periods: T1 (5 s), T2 (5 s), and T3 (20 s), with stimuli intensities of 48 °C, 49°C and 48°C or 150% of ePD, 180% of ePD, and 150% of ePD. Subjects were asked to rate the pain intensity on an electronic Visual Analog Scale (VAS; 0: no pain; 10: worst imaginable pain), and were categorized as responders if they showed more than 30% lower VAS at heat OA-trials compared to heat control-trial. Repeated measures Analysis of Variance was applied to investigate the difference in pain intensity to the electrical OA-trials, compared with the electrical control-trials. Results: Responders to the heat OA-trial also responded to the electrical OA-trial compared to the electrical control-trial, with an analgesic effect of 3.3±0.5 VAS points (P < 0.001). However, when analyzing all subjects, no difference was found comparing the electrical OA-trial (VAS 3.8±0.5) to the electrical control-trial (VAS 6.2±0.4; P > 0.5). Conclusions: This study suggests that responders to the heat OA-paradigm also respond to the electrical OA-paradigm.

Angaben zum Objekt

• Standort: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Umfang: Online-Ressource
• Sprache: Englisch

Verweise und Beziehungen

• Erschienen in: Assessing Offset Analgesia through electrical stimulations in healthy volunteers ; volume:16 ; number:1 ; year:2017 ; pages:178-178 ; extent:1 ; Scandinavian journal of pain ; 16, Heft 1 (2017), 178-178 (gesamt 1)

Beteiligte, Orts- und Zeitangaben

• Urheber: Ligato, D. ; Petersen, K.K. ; Mørch, C.D. ; Arendt-Nielsen, L.

Weitere Informationen

• DOI: 10.1016/j.sjpain.2017.04.040
• URN: urn:nbn:de:101:1-2024022714264160618469
• Rechteinformation: Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Letzte Aktualisierung: 14.08.2025, 10:46 MESZ