title: Pain processing is faster than tactile processing in the human brain.
abstract: Pain signals threat and drives the individual into a behavioral response that significantly depends on a short stimulus-response latency. Paradoxically, the peripheral and spinal conduction velocities of pain are much slower than of tactile information. However, cerebral processing times and reaction times of touch and pain have not yet been fully assessed. Here we show that reaction times to selective nociceptive cutaneous laser stimuli are substantially faster than expected from the peripheral conduction velocities. Furthermore, by using magnetoencephalography, we found that latencies between earliest stimulus-evoked cortical responses and reaction times are approximately 60 ms shorter for nociceptive than for tactile stimuli. These findings reveal that cerebral processing of pain is substantially faster than processing of tactile information and relatively compensates for the slow peripheral and spinal conduction velocities of pain. Our observation shows how the cerebral organization of pain processing enhances motor responses to potentially harmful stimuli and thereby subserves the particular behavioral demands of pain.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Heinrich-Heine-University, D-40225 Düsseldorf, Germany. ploner@neurologie.uni-duesseldorf.de
authors.forename: Markus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ploner
authors.forename: Joachim
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Gross
authors.forename: Lars
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Timmermann
authors.forename: Alfons
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Schnitzler
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010146:Pain / Q000503:physiopathology*; D010147:Pain Measurement / Q000379:methods*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*; D014110:Touch / Q000502:physiology*