Different Activation of Opercular and Posterior Cingulate Cortex (PCC) in Patients With Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS I) Compared With Healthy Controls During Perception of Electrically Induced Pain: A Functional MRI Study

Abstract

Stronger PCC activation during painful stimulation may be interpreted as a correlate of motor inhibition during painful stimuli different from controls. Also, the decreased opercular activation in CRPS patients shows less sensory-discriminative processing of painful stimuli.These results show that changed cerebral pain processing in CRPS patients is less sensory-discriminative but more motor inhibition during painful stimuli. These changes are not limited to the diseased side but show generalized alterations of cerebral pain processing in chronic pain patients.