Thalamic Stimulation and Anaesthesia Modulated Neural Oscillations in Central Post-Stroke Pain

Introduction: Central post-stroke pain (CPSP) is a neuropathic pain syndrome developing after cerebrovascular accidents. Characterization of neural signatures within the somatosensory pathway is essential for elucidating the pathogenic mechanisms of CPSP and developing more effective treatments.

Methods: We recorded local field potentials (LFP) from the left ventral posterolateral thalamus (VPL) and the right central lateral thalamus (CL) of a patient with CPSP in the resting state under both off-, on-stimulation conditions, before- and after-anesthesia conditions . We explored the characteristics of thalamic neural oscillations in response to varying pain levels under multi-day LFPs and examined the influences of continuous DBS on these thalamic activities.

Results: We observed significant differences in the power spectral density (PSD) of different pain levels in the delta, theta and gamma frequency bands of the left VPL; 75Hz DBS significantly increased the PSD of delta and decreased the PSD of low-beta, while 130Hz DBS significantly reduced the PSD of theta and low-beta. The PSD of delta, theta, low- and high-beta significantly increased after anesthesia of both the left VPL and the right CL.

Conclusion : Thalamic stimulation modulated the neural oscillations related to pain, and the changes in neural activities in response to stimulation could serve as quantitative indicators for pain relief.