Pain-related autonomic response is modulated by the medial prefrontal cortex: An ECG-fMRI study in men

There are some simultaneous ECG-fMRI and ECG-Positron Emission Tomography (PET) studies, but limited information is available about the pain-related brain function-HRV relations. The novelty of our study is that we used pain as stimulus to activate the central autonomic network and investigated both frequency- and time-domain parameters of HRV.