Exploration of the EEG response to periodic thermal and vibrotactile stimuli

Details

Supervisors

Courtin, Arthur

Faculty

Faculté des sciences de la motricité

Degree label

Master [60] en kinésithérapie et réadaptation

Abstract

Abstract Objective: The purpose of this study is to establish if short pulses of vibration (painless, lemniscal pathway), heat (painful, spino-thalamic pathway) and cold (painless, spino-thalamic pathway), delivered at a constant frequency, elicit the same kind of responses observed after the very slow noxious heat stimulations used by Colon et al. (2017). Method: Twenty participants aged between 18 and 30 were recruited. Thermal stimulations were delivered using a Peltier effect contact thermode (maximum stimulation rate of 300 °C/s) and the VTS 1, a round-tipped piezo-electric actuator was used to apply vibrotactile stimulations. Across all modalities, each sequence of stimuli was delivered periodically at 0.25 Hz, as trains of 200 ms impulses. Processing and analysis of the EEG signal were conducted offline using Letswave 6. Results: The three modalities led to significant phase-locked responses and modulations of the theta, alpha and beta frequency band oscillations. Conclusion: Our results for different modalities are consistent with previous findings using a different stimulation profile. Therefore, these responses are unlikely to reflect specific brain responses to noxious heat or pain but more probably reflect activity related in somatosensation or even, more broadly, conscious sensory perception.