title: Thresholds for the perception of pressure, sharpness, and mechanically evoked cutaneous pain: effects of laterality and repeated testing.
abstract: Twenty-four healthy human subjects provided thresholds for their perception of pressure, sharpness, and pain. Mechanical forces were applied to the dorsal surface of the digits with flat-tipped probes of various sizes. Thresholds (expressed as force) increased with increasing probe size, as previously described. There was no evidence of a laterality difference for any of the thresholds. There was a trend for increasing thresholds with repeated testing, but this trend was not statistically significant for the group as a whole. Examination of individual subjects' thresholds over time revealed that 27% showed significant increases in pain threshold over the 15 days of testing. In contrast, only 6% of subjects showed significant increases in sharpness or pressure thresholds over the same period. Thus, whereas most subjects exhibited stable pain thresholds, approximately one-fourth showed significant increases in pain threshold over time. We conclude that for evaluating regional dysesthesia or hemidysesthesia, a right-left difference in pain thresholds will provide a more sensitive and reliable measure than absolute pain threshold.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery and Physiology, SUNY Health Science Center at Syracuse 13210, USA.
authors.forename: J D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Greenspan
authors.forename: S L
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: McGillis
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D005385:Fingers / Q000294:innervation; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology*; D006185:Habituation, Psychophysiologic / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008465:Mechanoreceptors / Q000502:physiology*; D009619:Nociceptors / Q000502:physiology*; D017288:Pain Threshold / Q000502:physiology*; D011601:Psychophysics; D012016:Reference Values; D012684:Sensory Thresholds / Q000502:physiology; D012867:Skin / Q000294:innervation*