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J Neurophysiol 97: 2559-2563, 2007. First published January 10, 2007; doi:10.1152/jn.01125.2006
0022-3077/07 $8.00

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Psychophysical Evidence for Long-Term Potentiation of C-Fiber and A-Fiber Pathways in Humans by Analysis of Pain Descriptors

Institute of Physiology and Pathophysiology, Johannes-Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany

Submitted 23 October 2006; accepted in final form 2 January 2007

Long-term potentiation of human pain perception (nociceptive LTP) to single electrical test stimuli was induced by high-frequency stimulation (HFS) of cutaneous nociceptive afferents. Numerical pain ratings and a list of sensory pain descriptors disclosed the same magnitude of nociceptive LTP (23% increase for >60 min, P < 0.001), whereas affective pain descriptors were not significantly enhanced. Factor analysis of the sensory pain descriptors showed that facilitation was restricted to two factors characterized by hot and burning (+41%) and piercing and stinging (+21%, both P < 0.01), whereas a factor represented by throbbing and beating was not significantly increased (+9%, P = 0.47). The increased perception of the burning pain quality for >1 h after HFS is interpreted as a LTP-like facilitation of the conditioned cutaneous C-fiber pathway. Additionally, the increase of the stinging pain quality supplied evidence for facilitation of a sharpness-sensitive A-fiber pathway.

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