Electrophysiological Approaches to Pain: Diagnostic Evoked Potentials and Peripheral Electrical Neuromodulation

Electrical stimulation plays two distinct but related roles in pain research and practice. As a diagnostic tool, it evokes measurable responses, such as pain-related evoked potentials, that reveal how intact or altered a person’s nociceptive pathway is, and can be compared against other assessments like contact heat or laser-evoked potentials and quantitative sensory testing. As a therapeutic tool, non-invasive electrical stimulation underlies techniques such as Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS), interferential current therapy, and electroacupuncture, used for decades to manage acute and chronic pain, though treatment outcomes vary widely between patients and the underlying mechanisms remain incompletely understood.This Research Topic brings these threads together under a single question: what can non-invasive electrophysiological methods tell us about pain, and how can that understanding improve how we treat it? We welcome validation and methodological studies comparing evoked-potential techniques with one another or with other nociceptive assessments, research characterizing what these evoked responses and electrodiagnostic markers reveal about pain pathway function and sensitization, and studies examining nerve conduction or electromyographic correlates of pain. We equally welcome mechanistic and clinical research on peripheral electrical neuromodulation, including TENS, interferential current therapy, and electroacupuncture, covering their mechanisms of action, optimal stimulation parameters, predictors of individual treatment response, and comparative effectiveness. Work that connects these threads directly, for example using evoked-potential or electrodiagnostic assessment to characterize patients before or during electrical neuromodulation therapy, is especially welcome but not required.This topic welcomes original research, validation studies, systematic and narrative reviews, methodological papers, case series, and expert opinion pieces, provided they clearly connect their findings to practical implications for pain assessment or management. Submissions should focus on non-invasive, surface-level or peripheral electrophysiological methods rather than implanted or surgical neuromodulation approaches.Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: pain-related evoked potentials and their validation against other nociceptive assessments, contact heat and laser-evoked potentials, quantitative sensory testing, nerve conduction and electrodiagnostic correlates of pain, mechanisms of TENS and other peripheral electrical neuromodulation, predictors of individual response to electrical stimulation therapy, stimulation parameter optimization, comparative effectiveness across electrical neuromodulation techniques, and the integration of electrophysiological assessment into personalized pain management. Topic editors: Merab G Tsagareli, Guillaume Leonard, Fang Gao Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/84999/electrophysiological-approaches-to-pain-diagnostic-evoked-potentials-and-peripheral-electrical-neuromodulation