Somatosensory processing of non-painful tactile stimuli in patients with idiopathic trigeminal neuralgia

Objective: The mechanisms of chronic pain and its influence on pain processing structures are poorly understood. Since pain and somatosensory processing take place in overlapping cortical structures, we examined chronic pain patients with idiopathic trigeminal neuralgia (TN) and healthy volunteers using fMRI during somatosensory stimulation. In a second study we re-examined TN patients relieved from pain by successful surgical treatment (microvascular decompression using Jannetta-technique). Methods: 19 patients with TN, 13 healthy volunteers and 10 post-OP patients that were free of pain by the time of the 2nd…