Nociceptive Processing of Elite Athletes Varies between Sport-Specific Loads: An EEG-Based Study Approach.

INTRODUCTION: For the downstream nociceptive processing of elite athletes, recent studies indicate that athletes probably tolerate more pain as compared with a normally active population. Phenotyping the nociceptive processing of athletes in different types of endurance sports can provide insight into training-specific effects, which may help in understanding the long-term effects of specific exercise. METHODS: Twenty-six elite endurance athletes from the disciplines of rowing, triathlon, and running and 26 age- and sex-matched, recreationally active control subjects who participated in the subjective pain perception and processing of standardized noxious stimuli were investigated by EEG. This included standardized heat pain thresholds (HPT) and contact heat-evoked potentials from heat stimulation, measured with EEG as well as pinprick-evoked potentials from mechanical stimulation. RESULTS: After noxious stimulation, athletes showed a higher activation of the event-related spectral perturbation (ERSP) patterns in the N2P2 EEG response at the Cz Electrode compared with the controls. After noxious contact heat stimulation, triathletes had a higher ERSP activation compared with the controls, whereas the rowers had a higher ERSP activation after noxious mechanical stimulation. Also, HPT in triathletes were increased despite their increased central activation after thermal stimulation. We found a correlation between increased HPT and training hours and years, although athletes did not differ within these variables. CONCLUSIONS: Although we were able to identify differences between athletes of different endurance sports, the reasons and implications of these differences remain unclear. The study of sport-specific somatosensory profiles may help to understand the mechanisms of exercise-related long-term effects on pain processing and perception. Furthermore, sport-specific somatosensory effects may support the personalization of exercise interventions and identify risk factors for chronic pain in elite athletes.

Correction: Dreismickenbecker et al. Electroencephalography-Based Effects of Acute Alcohol Intake on the Pain Matrix. Brain Sci. 2023, 13, 1659.

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Electroencephalography-Based Effects of Acute Alcohol Intake on the Pain Matrix.

The effects of acute and chronic intakes of high doses of alcohol on pain perception are well known, ranging from short-term analgesic effects to long-term sensitization and polyneuropathies. The short-term analgesic effects of ethanol consumption on subjective pain perception have been well studied in the literature. Recent advances in neuroimaging allow for an insight into pain-related structures in the brain, fostering the mechanistic understanding of the processing of nociceptive input and pain. We aimed to utilize EEG, combined with standardized noxious mechanical/thermal stimulation and subjective pain testing, to research the effects of acute alcohol intake on nociceptive processing and pain perception. We recruited 12 healthy subjects in an unblinded cross-over study design and aimed at achieving a blood alcohol level of 0.1%. Our data revealed a significant reduction in subjective pain ratings to noxious thermal and mechanical stimuli after alcohol ingestion. Our EEG data revealed suppressing effects on the cortical structures responsible for processing pain, the "pain matrix". We conclude that in addition to its analgesic effects, as expressed by the reduction in subjective pain, alcohol has a further impact on the "pain matrix" and directly affects the salience to a nociceptive stimulus.