Common and distinct neural representations of aversive somatic and visceral stimulation in healthy individuals

Lukas Van Oudenhove, Philip A. Kragel, Patrick Dupont, Huynh Giao Ly, Els Pazmany, Paul Enzlin, Amandine Rubio, Chantal Delon-Martin, Bruno Bonaz, Qasim Aziz, Jan Tack, Shin Fukudo, Michiko Kano and Tor D. Wager ()
Additional contact information
Lukas Van Oudenhove: KU Leuven
Philip A. Kragel: University of Colorado Boulder
Patrick Dupont: KU Leuven
Huynh Giao Ly: KU Leuven
Els Pazmany: University of Leuven
Paul Enzlin: University of Leuven
Amandine Rubio: University of Grenoble Alpes
Chantal Delon-Martin: University of Grenoble Alpes
Bruno Bonaz: University of Grenoble Alpes
Qasim Aziz: Queen Mary University of London
Jan Tack: KU Leuven
Shin Fukudo: Tohoku University
Michiko Kano: Tohoku University
Tor D. Wager: Dartmouth College

Nature Communications, 2020, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract Different pain types may be encoded in different brain circuits. Here, we examine similarities and differences in brain processing of visceral and somatic pain. We analyze data from seven fMRI studies (N = 165) and five types of pain and discomfort (esophageal, gastric, and rectal distension, cutaneous thermal stimulation, and vulvar pressure) to establish and validate generalizable pain representations. We first evaluate an established multivariate brain measure, the Neurologic Pain Signature (NPS), as a common nociceptive pain system across pain types. Then, we develop a multivariate classifier to distinguish visceral from somatic pain. The NPS responds robustly in 98% of participants across pain types, correlates with perceived intensity of visceral pain and discomfort, and shows specificity to pain when compared with cognitive and affective conditions from twelve additional studies (N = 180). Pre-defined signatures for non-pain negative affect do not respond to visceral pain. The visceral versus the somatic classifier reliably distinguishes somatic (thermal) from visceral (rectal) stimulation in both cross-validation and independent cohorts. Other pain types reflect mixtures of somatic and visceral patterns. These results validate the NPS as measuring a common core nociceptive pain system across pain types, and provide a new classifier for visceral versus somatic pain.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19688-8 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:11:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-19688-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-19688-8

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().