CNS activation by noxious heat to the hand or foot: Site-dependent delay in sensory but not emotion circuitry

Recently, functional magnetic resonance imaging has been used as a novel method of evaluating the CNS response to noxious stimuli. In a previous study, a prolonged noxious thermal stimulus applied to the dorsum of the hand produced more than one hemodynamic response that was temporally segregated. The two major responses displayed activation in primary sensory regions (classic pain circuitry) and regions involved in emotion (reward/aversion circuitry), respectively. In the current study, we applied the same thermal stimulus separately to the dorsum of the left foot and the dorsum of the left hand in the same subjects and compared the hemodynamic responses to evaluate the effects of conduction distance on CNS activation within these two segregated systems. After stimulus delivery to the foot, the hemodynamic response in primary sensory networks occurs after a delay of 3.6+/-1.3 s as compared with the response after hand stimulation. The relative delay of the hemodynamic response in reward/aversion regions is not significantly different between hand and foot stimulation (0.6+/-2.1 s). These results within the primary sensory system are consistent with the greater conduction distance of the peripheral nerves from the hand versus the foot. The observation that the response within the reward/aversion pathways occurs with the same rapid temporal characteristics after either hand or foot stimulation supports the notion that the circuitry involved in the evaluation of aversive stimuli is rapid in onset and probably represents a major protective mechanism for survival.