Use of Cutaneous Electrical Stimulation to Induce Temporal Summation in Healthy Volunteers

Objectives:
The aim of this study was to establish the novel method of cutaneous electrical stimulation to induce noxious test stimulus (TS). Additionally, we evaluated noxious test stimulus (TS) in Conditioned pain modulation (CPM) in healthy volunteers.

Methods:
We examined the CPM in 10 healthy volunteers during application of the dominant hand into 40 °C (warm) or 47°C (hot) stimulation. Using concentric surface electrodes, electrical stimuli were applied on the chin, inducing pain of 20-30 on Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) 0-100 (TS). A single stimulus and then a train of 10 successive stimuli were applied with a frequency of 1 Hz.

Results: there was a significant difference between groups using warm or hot stimulation as a conditioning stimulus. However, application of neither warm nor hot conditioning stimulation did not significantly reduce test stimulus pain rating during conditioning (respectively, P=0.155 and P=0.064).
Conclusions:
This novel cutaneous electrical stimulation may be a feasible method to induce to temporal summation.