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Abstract:
In order to examine the effect of pain preattentively on the
mismatch negativity (MMN) event-related potential,
electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings were made at 54 electrode
sites in twenty undergraduate volunteers. Auditory tones were
presented to participants while they attended to a video in pain
(forearm in 3-4 degree Celsius water) and no-pain (forearm in 17-19
degree Celsius water) conditions. Additional information regarding
participants' pain experience was collected using the McGill Pain
Questionnaire (MPQ), the Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS), and a
modified Pain Coping Strategies Questionnaire (PCSQ). We
hypothesized that MMN amplitude in the pain condition would be
decreased as a result of a disruption by pain of frontal region
attention-switch processes. Results showed differential effects
(frontally) of pain on MMN amplitude between three groups of
participants. Contrary to our hypothesis, the majority of
participants showed an increase in frontal MMN amplitude,
suggesting a preattentive orienting response to auditory stimuli
while in pain. A small group of participants showed a decrease in
MMN amplitude as hypothesized while another small group of
participants showed no change in MMN amplitude as a result of pain.
The MPQ, PCS, and PSCQ data did not clearly differentiate the
groups. We conclude that pain does appear to have a preattentive
effect but that underlying individual differences in perceptual
processing may significantly modulate this effect. *
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