• DOI:10.1093/cercor/bhr027
• Corpus ID: 15576782

Neurophysiological coding of traits and states in the perception of pain.

@article{Schulz2011NeurophysiologicalCO,
  title={Neurophysiological coding of traits and states in the perception of pain.},
  author={Enrico Schulz and Laura Tiemann and Tibor Schuster and Joachim Gross and Markus Ploner},
  journal={Cerebral cortex},
  year={2011},
  volume={21 10},
  pages={
          2408-14
        }
}

• E. Schulz, L. Tiemann, +2 authors M. Ploner
• Published 4 March 2011
• Psychology, Biology
• Cerebral cortex

Perception is not a simple reflection of sensory information but varies within and between individuals. This applies particularly to the perception of pain, which, in the brain, is associated with neuronal responses at different frequencies. Here, we show how these different neuronal responses subserve interindividual and intraindividual variations in the perception of identical painful stimuli. A time-frequency analysis of single trial electroencephalographic data indicates that pain-related responses in the theta frequency range but not at higher gamma frequencies code for interindividual variations in the perception of pain. In contrast, both pain-related theta and gamma responses provide different and complementary information on intraindividual variations in the pain experience. We conclude that theta responses reflect rather constant physiological and psychological traits of the individual, whereas gamma responses relate to short-term modulations of the individual's state. These findings reveal how neuronal responses at different frequencies differentially contribute to the translation of sensory information into a subjective percept.