No modulation of experimentally-induced pain by navigation-guided rTMS of the right inferior frontal gyrus

Introduction: Expected experimentally-induced pain is usually perceived as less painful, whereas the opposite effect can be observed for unexpected experimentally-induced pain. Previous fMRI data revealed that the activation for expectation of experimentally-induced pain has distinct neuronal correlates from those activated by pain itself (e.g. within the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG)). Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) allows for the modulation of cortical processing. We therefore aimed to determine the functional relevance of the IFG for the modulation of pain perception using two differ…