On acupuncture analgesia and the mechanism of pain

The effect on the experimental tooth pain threshold of conditioning electrical stimulation via needles or surface electrodes applied to the hands and cheeks was studied in 34 dental students. Conditioning stimulation with 2/sec. gave a slowly increasing pain threshold followed by a slow return to the control level in the post-conditioning period. In each individual the amplitude of the threshold increase was reproduceable. It was concluded that these effects are not due to motivational but to more basic neurophysiological mechanisms. The pain threshold was increased mainly by segmental conditioning stimulation; segmentally unrelated stimulation gave usually only small effects. Conditioning stimulation with 100/sec. produced only a strict segmental short-lasting effect. Effects with characteristics of both 2/sec. and 100/sec. were obtained by conditioning at 10/sec. It is suggested that the transmission of impulses from the pain afferents to ascending pathways is controlled at the segmental level by (a) presynaptic inhibition within the group of afferents giving rise to the flexion reflex of which the pain afferents are assumed to be a part; (b) postsynaptic inhibition between alternate pathway excited by flexion reflex afferents; and (c) descending control from supraspinal systems which may utilize similar segmental mechanisms as the primary afferents.