Pain Does Not Follow the Boxcar Model: Temporal Dynamics of the BOLD fMRI Signal During Constant Current Painful Electric Nerve Stimulation

The temporal dynamics of the blood oxygen level–dependent (BOLD) signal, especially for painful stimulations, is not completely understood. In this study, the BOLD signal response to a long painful electrical stimulation (a continuous painful stimulation of 2 minutes) is directly compared to that of a short painful stimulation (four 30-second periods of painful stimulation interleaved with 30-second rest) in an effort to further probe the relationship between the temporal dynamics of the BOLD signal during constant-intensity pain stimulation. Time course analysis showed that both stimulation protocols produced 3 similarly timed peaks in both data sets, suggesting an early and delayed BOLD response to painful stimulation initiation, and a response related to stimulus termination. Despite the continuous stimulation, the BOLD signal returned to baseline in the 2-minute task. Even with this signal discrepancy, however, the activation maps of the 2 pain tasks differed only slightly, suggesting that the bulk of the activation is determined by the sharp rise in BOLD signal with stimulus onset. These findings imply that the BOLD signal response time course is not directly reflective of pain perception.PerspectiveThis article demonstrates that the BOLD signal for a painful stimulation contains multiple peaks and does not maintain the constant level during stimulation that is assumed in typical analysis. Although these dynamics should be accounted for in future studies because of their ability to confound results, their presence did not significantly alter the overall group maps.