Alpha Oscillation in Phantom Limb Pain Patients: A Neuropathic Pain Signature

Conference poster, 2019

People with acquired amputation face oftentimes the onset of chronic pain, which develops as either residual limb pain, neuroma or nociceptive phantom limb pain (PLP), or neuropathic PLP.  To date, the pathophysiology giving raise to PLP is still object of debate, with previous literature mainly focusing
on whether and how reorganization takes place in the primary somatosensory and motor cortices. Striving to understand how changes in somatotopy and mototopy relate to PLP, brain imaging studies have traditionally been conducted with a task-based fMRI approaches which measure the neural
activity in an indirect way. Yet, little is known about the effect of amputation on the global brain organization and electrophysiological techniques, such as EEG, have not been taken fully advantage of. In this study we analyse the power of spontaneous and ongoing EEG activity as a function of
frequency. The rationale for this choice stems from the assumption that brain at rest, in opposition to task-based paradigms, allows to capture dynamics related to the processing of pain which would otherwise be masked by other sensory or cognitive functions processes.