1
|
Zhao R, Su Q, Song Y, Yang Q, Wang S, Zhang J, Qin W, Yu C, Liang M. Brain-activation-based individual identification reveals individually unique activation patterns elicited by pain and touch. Neuroimage 2022; 260:119436. [PMID: 35788043 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119436] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/31/2021] [Revised: 06/28/2022] [Accepted: 06/30/2022] [Indexed: 11/15/2022] Open
Abstract
Pain is subjective and perceived differently in different people. However, individual differences in pain-elicited brain activations are largely overlooked and often discarded as noises. Here, we used a brain-activation-based individual identification procedure to investigate the uniqueness of the activation patterns within the whole brain or brain regions elicited by nociceptive (laser) and tactile (electrical) stimuli in each of 62 healthy participants. Specifically, brain activation patterns were used as "fingerprints" to identify each individual participant within and across sensory modalities, and individual identification accuracy was calculated to measure each individual's identifiability. We found that individual participants could be successfully identified using their brain activation patterns elicited by nociceptive stimuli, tactile stimuli, or even across modalities. However, different participants had different identifiability; importantly, the within-pain, but not within-touch or cross-modality, individual identifiability obtained from three brain regions (i.e., the left superior frontal gyrus, the middle temporal gyrus and the insular gyrus) were inversely correlated with the scores of Pain Vigilance and Awareness Questionnaire (i.e., how a person is alerted to pain) across participants. These results suggest that each individual has a unique pattern of brain responses to nociceptive stimuli which contains both modality-nonspecific and pain-specific information and may be associated with pain-related behaviors shaped by his/her own personal experiences and highlight the importance of a transition from group-level to individual-level characterization of brain activity in neuroimaging studies.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Rui Zhao
- School of Medical Imaging, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Functional Imaging, The Province and Ministry Co-sponsored Collaborative Innovation Center for Medical Epigenetics, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, 300070, China; Department of Orthopedics Surgery, Tianjin Medical University General Hospital, Tianjin 300052, China
| | - Qian Su
- Department of Molecular Imaging and Nuclear Medicine, Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital, National Clinical Research Center for Cancer, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Cancer Prevention and Therapy, Tianjin's Clinical Research Center for China, Tianjin 300060, China
| | - YingChao Song
- School of Medical Imaging, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Functional Imaging, The Province and Ministry Co-sponsored Collaborative Innovation Center for Medical Epigenetics, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, 300070, China
| | - QingQing Yang
- School of Medical Imaging, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Functional Imaging, The Province and Ministry Co-sponsored Collaborative Innovation Center for Medical Epigenetics, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, 300070, China; Department of Radiology, Zhejiang University School of Medicine First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang 310009, China
| | - Sijia Wang
- School of Medical Imaging, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Functional Imaging, The Province and Ministry Co-sponsored Collaborative Innovation Center for Medical Epigenetics, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, 300070, China
| | - Juan Zhang
- Department of Prosthodontics, School and Hospital of Stomatology, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, 300070, China
| | - Wen Qin
- Department of Radiology and Tianjin Key Laboratory of Functional Imaging, Tianjin Medical University General Hospital, Tianjin 300052, China
| | - Chunshui Yu
- School of Medical Imaging, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Functional Imaging, The Province and Ministry Co-sponsored Collaborative Innovation Center for Medical Epigenetics, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, 300070, China
| | - Meng Liang
- School of Medical Imaging, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Functional Imaging, The Province and Ministry Co-sponsored Collaborative Innovation Center for Medical Epigenetics, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, 300070, China.
| |
Collapse
|