Brain activation by thermal stimulation in humans studied with fMRI

Yagishita, Tomoko; Sadato, Norihiro; Okada, Tomohisa; Taniguchi, Aki; Konishi, Masahiro; Nagashima, Kei; Yonekura, Yoshiharu; Kanosue, Kazuyuki

doi:10.1016/s1572-347x(05)80003-5

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…The activation of the insular (or including SII) is in good agreement with the results of previous studies related to temperature sensation using PET or fMRI (Becerra et al, 1999;Craig et al, 1996). It has been reported that the insular cortex is the region that is best related to a thermal stimulus (Apkarian et al, 1999), which are innocuous as well as noxious thermal stimuli (Casey et al, 1996;Coghill et al, 2001;Yagishita et al, 2002). Craig et al (2000), using PET, reported that the thermosensory cortex lies in the dorsal margin of the middle/posterior insular in humans.…”

Section: Insular Cortexsupporting

confidence: 87%

“…Recent studies of humans using positron emission tomography (PET) or functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) showed that thermal signals from the skin appeared to reach several regions of the cerebral cortex, including the insular, primary and secondary somatosensory (SI and SII), frontal, and anterior cingulate cortex (Becerra et al, 1999(Becerra et al, , 2004Craig et al, 2000;Davis et al, 1998;Yagishita et al, 2002). The involvement of brain activation in pain-noxious thermal stimulation was well established, but relatively little was known regarding its activation by innocuous thermal stimulation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Brain Activation Related to Affective Dimension During Thermal Stimulation in Humans: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

Sung

Yoo

Yoon

et al. 2007

International Journal of Neuroscience

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The aim of this study was to identify the activated brain region that is involved with the affective dimension of thermal stimulation (not pain, but innocuous warming) using functional MR imaging. Twelve healthy, right-handed male subjects participated in the study. Thermal stimulation with two different temperatures of 41 degrees C and 34 degrees C was applied to the subjects using a fomentation pack, wrapped around the right lower leg of each subject. On the basis of the subjects' responses after the scanning sessions, the authors were able to observe that the subjects felt "warm" and "slightly pleasant and comfortable" under the 41 degrees C condition. The experimental results indicated that warm stimulation produced a significant increase of activation compared to thermal neutral stimulation in various regions such as contralateral insular, ipsilateral cerebellum, ipsilateral putamen, contralateral middle frontal gyrus, ipsilateral inferior frontal gyrus, contralateral postcentral gyrus, and contralateral paracentral lobule. The activated regions are known to be related to thermal sensory, affective/emotional awareness, cognitive functions, sensory-discrimination, and emotion/affective processing, and so on. These results suggest that an appropriate thermal stimulation can produce a positive emotion and activate emotion/affect related regions of the brain.

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Section: Insular Cortexsupporting

confidence: 87%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Brain Activation Related to Affective Dimension During Thermal Stimulation in Humans: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

Sung

Yoo

Yoon

et al. 2007

International Journal of Neuroscience

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“…The objective assessment of thermal perception has been performed using techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), positron emission tomography (PET), and electroencephalography (EEG). Studies employing fMRI and PET have revealed that non-painful thermal stimuli activate multiple cortical areas, including the insular cortex [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31], the prefrontal cortex [22,25,32,33], and the anterior cingulate cortex [25,[33][34][35][36][37][38]. These findings are supported by studies that indicate that stroke damage to the insular cortex can lead to a specific loss of sensitivity to non-painful temperature [39].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 81%

Effective brain connectivity related to non-painful thermal stimuli using EEG

Santos Cuevas,

Campos Ruiz,

Collina

et al. 2024

Biomed. Phys. Eng. Express

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Understanding the brain response to thermal stimuli is crucial in the sensory experience. This study focuses on non-painful thermal stimuli, which are sensations induced by temperature changes without causing discomfort. These stimuli are transmitted to the central nervous system through specific nerve fibers and are processed in various regions of the brain, including the insular cortex, the prefrontal cortex, and anterior cingulate cortex. Despite the prevalence of studies on painful stimuli, non-painful thermal stimuli have been less explored. This research aims to bridge this gap by investigating brain functional connectivity during the perception of non-painful warm and cold stimuli using electroencephalography (EEG) and the partial directed coherence technique (PDC). Our results demonstrate a clear contrast in the direction of information flow between warm and cold stimuli, particularly in the theta and alpha frequency bands, mainly in frontal and temporal regions. The use of PDC highlights the complexity of brain connectivity during these stimuli and reinforces the existence of different pathways in the brain to process different types of non-painful warm and cold stimuli.

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