MANIPULATION OF TRANSCUTANEOUS ELECTRICAL NERVE-STIMULATION VARIABLESHAS NO EFFECT ON 2 MODELS OF EXPERIMENTAL PAIN IN HUMANS

Two separate studies investigated the hypoalgesic effect of manipulati on of Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS) parameters on two models of experimental pain: the Submaximal Effort Tourniquet Tec hnique and cold-presser pain. For the first study, 32 healthy subjects (16 male and 16 female) attended once for the purpose of cold-presser pain induction that involved immersion of the nondominant hand in a w ater bath at 0 degrees C. Subjects were allocated to Control, Placebo, or 1 of 2 treatment groups (110 or 4-Hz TENS). Pain threshold measure ments (time to withdrawal of hand in seconds) were obtained over six s tandardised cold pain cycles (i.e., two before stimulation onset, thre e during stimulation, and one cycle after stimulation). In the second study, 48 healthy volunteers (24 male and 24 female) attended on two o ccasions, 48 h apart, for the purposes of ischaemic pain induction. On the first attendance, baseline data were obtained and on the second, subjects were randomly allocated to Control, Placebo, or one of four t reatment groups with different combinations of stimulation frequencies and pulse durations (4 or 110 Hz and 50 or 200 mu s). Measurements of ''current pain intensity'' and ''worst pain experienced'' were obtain ed via the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) and the McGill Pain Questionnai re (MPQ), respectively. Analysis of variance performed on both sets of collected data revealed no significant differences between any of the groups, thus indicating no apparent relevance of manipulation of TENS parameters using these models of pain. Several hypotheses are suggest ed to explain these findings.