Decoding an individual's sensitivity to pain from the multivariate analysis of EEG data

Cereb Cortex. 2012 May;22(5):1118-23. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhr186. Epub 2011 Jul 17.

Abstract

The perception of pain is characterized by its tremendous intra- and interindividual variability. Different individuals perceive the very same painful event largely differently. Here, we aimed to predict the individual pain sensitivity from brain activity. We repeatedly applied identical painful stimuli to healthy human subjects and recorded brain activity by using electroencephalography (EEG). We applied a multivariate pattern analysis to the time-frequency transformed single-trial EEG responses. Our results show that a classifier trained on a group of healthy individuals can predict another individual's pain sensitivity with an accuracy of 83%. Classification accuracy depended on pain-evoked responses at about 8 Hz and pain-induced gamma oscillations at about 80 Hz. These results reveal that the temporal-spectral pattern of pain-related neuronal responses provides valuable information about the perception of pain. Beyond, our approach may help to establish an objective neuronal marker of pain sensitivity which can potentially be recorded from a single EEG electrode.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Brain / physiology*
  • Electroencephalography
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Multivariate Analysis
  • Neurons / physiology
  • Pain Perception / physiology*
  • Pain Threshold / physiology*
  • Sensitivity and Specificity
  • Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted*
  • Young Adult