Estudio de la actividad cerebral en pacientes con fibromialgiaaspectos multidimensionales del dolor crónico

Laburpena

The objectives of studies that have composed the body of the thesis were focused, primarily, on characterizing sensory and cognitive brain processing of chronic pain patients, and evaluate the possible influence of emotional context on this processing. The results showed that fibromyalgia patients have an abnormal processing of early sensory coding (P50) and later cognitive assessment (LPC, 160-360 ms) of redundant non-nociceptive information, as well as an emotional modulation of somatosensory early components (P50 and N80). Also, chronic pain patients (musculoskeletal and fibromyalgia) show differences on the processing of pain-related words, in comparison with healthy subjects group. Finally, musculoskeletal pain patients show higher levels of complexity in the EEG signal on the right parietal area, and lower values of power in most parts of the frequency spectrum on the central, temporal and parietal areas, compared to healthy subjects. These results show an abnormal brain activity in patients with chronic pain, compared to healthy subjects.