Differential encoding of noxious heat and self-reported pain along corticospinal networks: a simultaneous spinal cord-brain fMRI study.

ABSTRACT: Chronic pain poses a substantial public health burden. Elucidating how the healthy central nervous system (CNS) differentially encodes objective stimulus intensity and subjective experiences of pain perception may offer key insights into the central mechanisms contributing to chronic pain. Functional MRI (fMRI) combined with controlled noxious stimulation provides a powerful means to explore neural representations of nociception and pain perception. Here, we applied noxious heat at three intensities (46 °C, 47 °C, 48 °C, 8 trials each randomized) to the right forearm of 28 healthy women during simultaneous spinal cord-brain fMRI to investigate how distributed corticospinal activity and connectivity encode stimulus intensity and subjective pain. Activity increased with stimulus temperature

SUBMITTER: Pfyffer D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12633297 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature