Biology subjects

Jessberger, J.

Publications and source records attributed to Jessberger, J..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Withdrawal latency in a human hot plate analog tracks inter-individual differences in pain sensitivity

Pain research relies mainly on self-report in humans and nocifensive behavior in animals. This asymmetry limits cross-species translation and neglects movement as integral to human pain responses. We therefore developed a human analog of the rodent hot plate test and tested whether temporal and kinematic features of nocifensive withdrawal can capture inter-individual differences in pain sensitivity. Ninety-one healthy participants rested their forearm on a thermode that rapidly heated to and held a fixed noxious temperature (46 {degrees}C or 48 {degrees}C) and were instructed to withdraw once the percept reached their pain threshold or tolerance. From wrist accelerometry, we extracted withdrawal latency and peak acceleration, an index of withdrawal vigor, and related both to pain intensity ratings from a separate, temperature-matched task and to calibrated pain sensitivity. Participants withdrew earlier and with higher peak acceleration at 48 {degrees}C than at 46 {degrees}C. Crucially, withdrawal latency tracked inter-individual differences in pain sensitivity: Participants who withdrew earlier reported higher pain in the separate task (48 {degrees}C: r = -.47 and -.50) and showed lower pain thresholds and higher suprathreshold sensitivity during calibration. In contrast, withdrawal vigor showed no such relationship, despite high reliability. Withdrawal latency can thus serve as a behavioral readout of inter-individual differences in pain sensitivity, whereas vigor might reflect intra-individual motor scaling with stimulus intensity. By separating the decision to withdraw from its motor execution, this paradigm offers a behavioral complement to traditional self-report and provides a translational link between human and preclinical pain assays.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2026

The pursuit of motivational goals reduces pain through an opioidergic mechanism

Pain promotes protective behavior but can interfere with other biologically important goals. Survival may require overcoming pain to obtain rewards, secure resources or escape danger, yet evidence for pain modulation by competing demands and endogenous modulatory systems during goal pursuit is lacking. We developed a paradigm in which participants chose whether to pursue monetary rewards despite painful heat stimulation during fMRI, under placebo or opioid receptor blockade with naloxone. Actively pursuing motivational goals during painful stimulation reduced perceived pain and increased fMRI signal in pain-modulatory cortical regions, including multiple subregions of the rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC) and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, alongside enhanced rACC-periaqueductal gray coupling, consistent with recruitment of the descending pain modulatory system. Behavioral and neural effects were attenuated by naloxone, supporting a mediating role for endogenous opioids. These findings provide convergent evidence that active goal pursuit engages opioidergic pain modulatory mechanisms to reduce pain in humans.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2017

Parallel Occurrence Of Theta And Respiration-Coupled Network Oscillations Throughout The Mouse Brain

Slow brain oscillations are usually coherent over long distances and are thought to constitute a means to link distributed cell assemblies. In mice, theta oscillations (4-12 Hz) stand as one of the most studied global slow rhythms. Previous research has suggested that theta takes part in interregional communication required for cognitive functions. However, mice often breathe at theta frequency, and we have recently reported that nasal respiration leads to synchronous network oscillations that are independent of theta. Namely, we showed that respiration-coupled oscillations occur in the hippocampus, prelimbic cortex, and parietal cortex, suggesting that, as theta, respiration-coupled oscillations are also global. In the present work, we sought to extend these findings by tracking respiration while simultaneously recording local field potentials from 15 brain regions of freely moving mice during exploration and REM sleep. We report that respiration-coupled rhythms can be detected in parallel with theta in widespread neocortical regions, from prefrontal to visual areas, and also in subcortical structures such as the thalamus, amygdala and ventral hippocampus. Though both rhythms occur simultaneously, respiration-coupled oscillations are more dominant in frontal regions while theta oscillations prevail in more caudal networks. We conclude that respiration-coupled oscillations are a global brain rhythm suited to entrain distributed networks into a common regime. This pattern might have escaped attention in previous studies due to the absence of respiration monitoring, its similarity with theta oscillations, and its highly variable peak frequency. It should, however, be considered as a widespread signal and potential mechanism of long-range network communication.

neuroscience↗