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The Journal of Neuroscience, March 28, 2007, 27(13):3388-3394; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5128-06.2007

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Behavioral/Systems/Cognitive
Brain Mechanisms Supporting Spatial Discrimination of Pain

Yoshitetsu Oshiro,¹ Alexandre S. Quevedo,¹ John G. McHaffie,¹ Robert A. Kraft,² and Robert C. Coghill^1,3

¹Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy, ²Department of Biomedical Engineering, and ³Center for the Study of Pharmacologic Plasticity in the Presence of Pain, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina 27157-1010

Correspondence should be addressed to Dr. Robert C. Coghill, Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC 27157-1010. Email: rcoghill{at}wfubmc.edu

Pain is a uniquely individual experience that is heavily shaped by evaluation and judgments about afferent sensory information. In visual, auditory, and tactile sensory modalities, evaluation of afferent information engages brain regions outside of the primary sensory cortices. In contrast, evaluation of sensory features of noxious information has long been thought to be accomplished by the primary somatosensory cortex and other structures associated with the lateral pain system. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging and a delayed match-to-sample task, we show that the prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, posterior parietal cortex, thalamus, and caudate are engaged during evaluation of the spatial locations of noxious stimuli. Thus, brain mechanisms supporting discrimination of sensory features of pain extend far beyond the somatosensory cortices and involve frontal regions traditionally associated with affective processing and the medial pain system. These frontoparietal interactions are similar to those involved in the processing of innocuous information and may be critically involved in placing afferent sensory information into a personal historical context.

Key words: dorsolateral prefrontal cortex; anterior cingulate cortex; somatosensory; perceptual judgments; memory; evaluation

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Received Nov. 27, 2006; revised Feb. 12, 2007; accepted Feb. 15, 2007.

Correspondence should be addressed to Dr. Robert C. Coghill, Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC 27157-1010. Email: rcoghill{at}wfubmc.edu

This article has been cited by other articles:

				C. J. Starr, L. Sawaki, G. F. Wittenberg, J. H. Burdette, Y. Oshiro, A. S. Quevedo, and R. C. Coghill Roles of the Insular Cortex in the Modulation of Pain: Insights from Brain Lesions J. Neurosci., March 4, 2009; 29(9): 2684 - 2694. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				F. Benuzzi, F. Lui, D. Duzzi, P. F. Nichelli, and C. A. Porro Does It Look Painful or Disgusting? Ask Your Parietal and Cingulate Cortex J. Neurosci., January 23, 2008; 28(4): 923 - 931. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				A. S. Quevedo and R. C. Coghill Attentional Modulation of Spatial Integration of Pain: Evidence for Dynamic Spatial Tuning J. Neurosci., October 24, 2007; 27(43): 11635 - 11640. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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