ReviewBrain : a journal of neurology2018
The search for pain biomarkers in the human brain.
Review in Brain : a journal of neurology, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT06510244 (Measuring Pain Perception to the Same Stimulus in Different Patients Using Electroencephalography and Numerical Rate Scale), which is not on this map. Cited by 122 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Measuring Pain Perception to the Same Stimulus in Different Patients Using Electroencephalography and Numerical Rate Scale
Who cites it
122 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 256 citations in OpenAlex.
- Variability and effect sizes of intracranial current source density estimations during pain: Systematic review, experimental findings, and future perspectives.Human brain mapping · 2021Pooled it
- Effects of Chronic Pain Treatment on Altered Functional and Metabolic Activities in the Brain: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Functional Neuroimaging Studies.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2021Pooled it
- Alterations in grey matter density and functional connectivity in trigeminal neuropathic pain and trigeminal neuralgia: A systematic review and meta-analysis.NeuroImage. Clinical · 2019Pooled it
- Influence of Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS) on Pressure Pain Thresholds and Conditioned Pain Modulation in a Randomized Controlled Trial in Women With Fibromyalgia.The journal of pain · 2024Trial
- Changes of cerebral functional connectivity induced by foot reflexology in a RCT.Scientific reports · 2023Trial
- Electroencephalography research in neuropathic pain (Review).Molecular medicine reports · 2026Review
- Altered somatosensory temporal discrimination in chronic non-specific low back pain patients with central sensitization-related features: a cross-sectional study.The Korean journal of pain · 2026Article
- From Oscillations to Brain States: Real-Time EEG-TMS for Adaptive Neuromodulation.Bioengineering (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- EEG-based clustering shows distinct separation of chronic pain patients before spinal cord stimulation surgery.NeuroImage · 2026Article
- From Association to Prediction: Translational Barriers in Pain Biomarker Research.Journal of personalized medicine · 2026Article
- From the Pain Matrix to Functional Networks: A Narrative Review of Chronic Pain Mechanisms Across Adult and Pediatric Populations with Emerging AI Perspectives.Brain sciences · 2026Review
- Connectivity-Based Pain Recognition from fNIRS: Parsimonious Subject-Independent Classification.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- A two-system theory of sensory-evoked brain responses.Brain : a journal of neurology · 2026Review
- Sensory and cortical biomarkers unveil pain modulation mechanisms induced by targeted multisensory neurostimulation.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation · 2026Article
- Brain sensory network activity underlies reduced nociceptive initiated and nociplastic pain via acupuncture in fibromyalgia.Communications medicine · 2026Article
- Behavioral assessment of pain in rodents: advances from evoked responses to spontaneous states and multimodal approaches.Frontiers in pain research (Lausanne, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Triple network disruption in medication overuse headache: functional signatures and clinical impact.The journal of headache and pain · 2025Article
- Controllability changes pain perception by increasing the precision of expectations.Nature communications · 2025Article
- A Replicable and Generalizable Neuroimaging-Based Indicator of Pain Sensitivity Across Individuals.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2025Article
- Article
62 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Non-invasive functional brain imaging is used more than ever to investigate pain in health and disease, with the prospect of finding new means to alleviate pain and improve patient wellbeing. The observation that several brain areas are activated by transient painful stimuli, and that the magnitude of this activity is often graded with pain intensity, has prompted researchers to extract features of brain activity that could serve as biomarkers to measure pain objectively. However, most of the brain responses observed when pain is present can also be observed when pain is absent. For example, similar brain responses can be elicited by salient but non-painful auditory, tactile and visual stimuli, and such responses can even be recorded in patients with congenital analgesia. Thus, as argued in this review, there is still disagreement on the degree to which current measures of brain activity exactly relate to pain. Furthermore, whether more recent analysis techniques can be used to identify distributed patterns of brain activity specific for pain can be only warranted using carefully designed control conditions. On a more general level, the clinical utility of current pain biomarkers derived from human functional neuroimaging appears to be overstated, and evidence for their efficacy in real-life clinical conditions is scarce. Rather than searching for biomarkers of pain perception, several researchers are developing biomarkers to achieve mechanism-based stratification of pain conditions, predict response to medication and offer personalized treatments. Initial results with promising clinical perspectives need to be further tested for replicability and generalizability.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.