Immediate and Short-Term Effects of Electro-Dry Needling on Thermal Temporal Summation in Healthy Adults

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to examine the local and distal immediate and short-term effects of a single session of electro-dry needling (EDN) on thermal temporal summation (TS) in asymptomatic adults. DESIGN: This was a single-group repeated-measures intervention study. METHODS: Twenty-five asymptomatic adults participated in this study. Using a Medoc TSA_II thermode, TS was assessed at three sites: right lumbar paraspinals, right tibialis anterior, and right thenar eminence. One week after establishing baseline stability of TS, participants received a 10-minute EDN intervention applied to the lumbar spine. TS was reassessed immediately after EDN, 25 minutes after EDN, and 48 hours later. Consistent with prior work, TS was quantified as the difference between the initial and peak pain ratings evoked by a series of 10 identical heat pulses. A 3 × 5 repeated-measures analysis of variance examined the effects of location and time. RESULTS: There were significant main effects of location (P = .031, [Formula: see text] ) and time (P < .001, [Formula: see text] ), but no Location × Time interaction (P = .570, [Formula: see text] ). TS decreased significantly from pre-EDN to each post-EDN time point (all P < .05). Reductions were similar across all anatomical sites, and TS remained stable from immediately post-EDN through 48 hours. Baseline measures collected 1 week apart showed no significant differences, supporting the stability of the TS measure. CONCLUSION: In asymptomatic adults, small but statistically significant reductions in TS were associated with a single 10-minute session of EDN. The absence of site-specific effects suggests that EDN may influence central rather than peripheral nociceptive processes. JOSPT Open 2026;4(3):367-373. Epub 3 Jun 2026. doi:10.2519/josptopen.2026.0204.