Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 12, 2025

Electrode Positioning and Montage in Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation
Published on: May 23, 2011
Correlation between spinal cord stimulation analgesia and cortical dynamics in pain management
Li Chen1,2, Zhen Zhang1, Rui Han1
1Department of Pain, The Third Xiangya Hospital and Institute of Pain Medicine, Central South University, Changsha, 410013, China.
Aim:
Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) is an effective method to treat neuropathic pain. It is necessary to identify the responders of SCS analgesia before implantation. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between the cortical dynamics and SCS analgesia responders in pain management.
Methods:
Resting-state EEG recording was performed in patients who underwent short-term implantation of spinal cord stimulation for pain therapy. We then did spectral analysis to capture the pattern of cortical oscillation between neuromodulation therapy analgesia responders and nonresponders.
Results:
About 58.3% (14 out of 24) of participants were considered as analgesia responders, with average visual analogue scores reduction of 4.8 ± 1.0 after surgery, and 2.1 ± 0.7 for the nonresponder subgroup, respectively. The alpha oscillation was significantly enhanced in responder cohort compared with nonresponders. We also observed an increasing spectral power of gamma band in responders. Furthermore, the attenuation of pain severity was significantly correlated with the global alpha oscillation activity (r = 0.60, P = 0.002). Likely, positive and significant correlation was found between the pain relief and gamma activity (r = 0.58, P = 0.003).
Conclusions:
Distinct pattern of neural oscillation is associated with the analgesic effect of spinal cord stimulation in pain management, enhancement of cortical alpha and gamma oscillation may be a predictor of analgesia responders.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
Analgesia and Pain Management
Local Anesthetics: Clinical Application as Spinal Anesthesia
Pain
Local Anesthetics: Clinical Application as Epidural Anesthesia
Since epidural anesthetics can be infused through an epidural catheter, all types of drugs, including short-acting ones, can be administered. Chloroprocaine and lidocaine are examples of short and long-duration anesthetics, respectively. Bupivacaine...

