ABSTRACT
Habituation to recurrent non-threatening or unavoidable noxious stimuli is an important aspect of adaptation to pain and indicates the ability of the brain to encode expectation of imminent nociception. However, it is not known whether the newborn brain can predict and habituate to recurrent noxious inputs. We used electroencephalography to investigate changes in cortical microstates, which represent the complex sequential processing of noxious inputs, following repeated clinically-required heel lances in term and preterm infants. Noxious stimulus repetition decreased the engagement of early sensory-related microstates and associated behavioural and physiological responses in term infants, while preterm infants did not show signs of adaptation. Nevertheless, both groups displayed a switch between different microstates at longer latencies. These data suggests that the preterm brain is capable of encoding high-level contextual differences in pain, but cannot update its prediction, which allows for adaptation, emphasising the vulnerability of this population to recurrent pain.
Competing Interest Statement
The authors have declared no competing interest.
Footnotes
Conflict of Interest Statement, The authors declare no conflict of interest in this study.
Funding Information, This work was funded by the Medical Research Council UK (MR/S003207/1) and the European Research Council (CoG 2015-682172NETS) within the Seventh European Union Framework Program. OB was supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (FBD–170829),
Authors’ Contributions Conceptualisation of study: L.J., L.F., M.F.; data collection and preparation: L.J., M.P.L-D., K.W.; clinical supervision: J.M.; data analysis: M.R., L.J., O.B., S.O.; data interpretation: M.R., L.J., L.F.; manuscript preparation: M.R., L.J., L.F. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.