The influence of pain on motor preparation in the human brain

The protective function of pain depends on appropriate motor responses to avoid injury and promote recovery. The preparation and execution of motor responses is, thus, an essential part of pain. However, it is not yet fully understood how pain and motor processes interact in the brain. We here used electroencephalography to investigate the effects of pain on motor preparation in the human brain. 20 healthy human participants performed a motor task in which they performed button presses to stop increasingly painful thermal stimuli when they became intolerable. In another condition, participants performed button presses without concurrent stimulation. The results show that the amplitudes of preparatory event-related desynchronizations at alpha and beta frequencies did not differ between conditions. In contrast, the amplitude of the preparatory readiness potential was reduced when a button press was performed to stop a painful stimulus as compared to a button press without concomitant pain. A control experiment with non-painful thermal stimuli showed a similar reduction of the readiness potential when a button press was performed to stop a non-painful thermal stimulus. Together, these findings indicate that painful and non-painful thermal stimuli can similarly influence motor preparation in the human brain. Pain-specific effects on motor preparation in the human brain remain to be demonstrated.

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