Neuroimaging-based biomarkers of individual differences in pain

Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre 

Pain perception varies dramatically across individuals. The same pain stimulus may be intolerably painful for someone, yet barely perceivable by another. What neural activity underlies such dramatic individual differences? In this presentation, I will classify individual differences in pain into two broad types: pain sensitivity and pain discriminability, corresponding to the absolute and difference thresholds in psychophysics. I will then explore how neuroimaging can uncover biomarkers of pain sensitivity and discriminability across individuals. Specifically, I will discuss (1) how large-scale fMRI datasets help build replicable and generalizable biomarkers of pain sensitivity, and (2) how selective biomarkers can be developed to decode pain discriminability from neural responses to nociceptive stimuli. Together, this presentation illustrates the potential of neuroimaging to advance our understanding of individual variability in pain.