Anticipation of pain enhances the nociceptive transmission and functional connectivity within pain network in rats.

Background: Expectation is a very potent pain modulator in both humans and animals. There is evidence that pain transmission neurons are modulated by expectation preceding painful stimuli. Nonetheless, few studies have examined the influence of pain expectation on the pain-related neuronal activity and the functional connectivity within the central nociceptive network.

Differential modulation of nociceptive neural responses in medial and lateral pain pathways by peripheral electrical stimulation: a multichannel recording study.

It is well accepted that peripheral electrical stimulation (PES) can produce an analgesic effect in patients with acute and chronic pain. However, the neural basis underlying stimulation-induced analgesia remains unclear. In the present study, we examined the pain-related neural activity modified by peripheral stimulation in rats.

Nociceptive responses of anterior cingulate cortical ensembles in behaving rats.

Objective: To confirm the role of anterior cingulated cortices (ACC) in the coding of pain affect by exploring the neural ensemble coding pattern within the anterior cingulate cortex in behaving rats with a multichannel recording technique.

Methods: In five adult male Sprague-Dawley rats, two arrays of eight stainless steel microwires were bilaterally implanted into ACC. Noxious radiant heat stimulation was applied to the tail, bilateral fore-paws and hind-paws of freely moving rats.