Authors: Zeinab Barati Patricia A Shewokis Meltem Izzetoglu Robi Polikar George Mychaskiw Kambiz Pourrezaei
Publish Date: 2012/09/07
Volume: 41, Issue: 2, Pages: 223-237
Abstract
The objective of this research was to assess the utility of a simple near infrared spectroscopy NIRS technology for objective assessment of the hemodynamic response to acute pain For this exploration we used functional near infrared spectroscopy fNIRS to measure the hemodynamic response on the forehead during three trials of a cold pressor test CPT in 20 adults To measure hemodynamic changes at the superficial tissues as well as the intracranial tissues two configurations of ‘far’ and ‘near’ sourcedetector separations were used We identified two features that were found to be fairly consistent across all subjects The first feature was the change of total hemoglobin THb concentration in a given condition divided by the duration of that condition textTHbprime Statistical analyses revealed that during the first CPT trial textTHbprime significantly changed from its baseline value in all channels Also adaptation to repeated CPTs was observed in both textTHbprime parameter and the reported poststimulus pain rating scores The second feature was the difference between the maximum and the minimum of the evoked changes in the THb concentration ΔTHb A significant correlation was observed between the poststimulus pain rating score and ΔTHb at all channels An asymmetrical activity was observed only at the ‘far’ channels These results suggest that fNIRS can potentially be used as a reliable technique for the assessment of the hemodynamic response to tonic pain induced by the CPT
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