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Psychophysiological responses to pain: Further validation of the nociceptive flexion reflex (NFR) as a measure of nociception using multilevel modeling
Author(s) -
Rhudy Jamie L.,
France Christopher R.,
Bartley Emily J.,
Mccabe Klanci M.,
Williams Amy E.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
psychophysiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.661
H-Index - 156
eISSN - 1469-8986
pISSN - 0048-5772
DOI - 10.1111/j.1469-8986.2009.00835.x
Subject(s) - nociception , psychology , corneal reflex , noxious stimulus , audiology , skin conductance , multivariate analysis of variance , reflex , analysis of variance , multilevel model , neuroscience , statistics , medicine , receptor , mathematics , biomedical engineering
Physiological reactions to noxious stimuli are often used to make inferences about pain, but few studies have thoroughly examined the intra‐ and interindividual relationships between them. In the present study ( N =104), multilevel analyses was used to assess relations between physiological (nociceptive flexion reflex magnitude [NFR], blink reflex magnitude, skin conductance response [SCR], heart rate [HR]) and subjective reactions to electrocutaneous stimuli. All physiological reactions were significant predictors of ratings when entered alone, explaining 1% (SCR) to 29% (NFR) of the variance; but only NFR, blink, and HR were significant in a multivariate predictor model. Significant interindividual variability in slopes was found for blink and HR, but not NFR. A final trimmed model that included NFR, blink, and the blink random slope explained 35% of the variance in ratings.