Introduction
pain
SPINAL CORD
Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) using electrical currents applied through epidural electrodes is an established method for neuromodulation in pain treatmentPrevious studies show heterogenous results regarding the effects of tsDCS on nociception. Some studies did not find a significant effect on pain perceptionThis specific effect for nociception raised the question if pain-related evoked potentials (PREP) using concentric surfaces electrodes (CE) could be similarly influenced by tsDCS, although their specificity for the spinothalamic pathway is still being discussedFollowing the study of Lenoir et al., we designed a double-blind controlled randomized cross-over study with two sessions per subject: one session of low thoracic anodal tsDCS compared to one session of sham tsDCS to examine the effects of anodal tsDCS on PREP using CE. Additionally, we analyzed the effect on somatosensory evoked potentials (SEP). Our hypothesis was that the low thoracic anodal tsDCS can reduce both the subjective pain intensity and the amplitudes of the PREP with CE of the lower limb, but not the upper limb and has no effect on SEP