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A novel dual-wavelength laser stimulator to elicit transient and tonic nociceptive stimulation

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Abstract

This study aimed to develop a new laser stimulator to elicit both transient and sustained heat stimulation with a dual-wavelength laser system as a tool for the investigation of both transient and tonic experimental models of pain. The laser stimulator used a 980-nm pulsed laser to generate transient heat stimulation and a 1940-nm continuous-wave (CW) laser to provide sustained heat stimulation. The laser with 980-nm wavelength can elicit transient pain with less thermal injury, while the 1940-nm CW laser can effectively stimulate both superficial and deep nociceptors to elicit tonic pain. A proportional integral-derivative (PID) temperature feedback control system was implemented to ensure constancy of temperature during heat stimulation. The performance of this stimulator was evaluated by in vitro and in vivo animal experiments. In vitro experiments on totally 120 specimens fresh pig skin included transient heat stimulation by 980-nm laser (1.5 J, 10 ms), sustained heat stimulation by 1940-nm laser (50–55 °C temperature control mode or 1.5 W, 5 min continuous power supply), and the combination of transient/sustained heat stimulation by dual lasers (1.5 J, 10 ms, 980-nm pulse laser, and 1940-nm laser with 50–55 °C temperature control mode). Hemoglobin brushing and wind-cooling methods were tested to find better stimulation model. A classic tail-flick latency (TFL) experiment with 20 Wistar rats was used to evaluate the in vivo efficacy of transient and tonic pain stimulation with 15 J, 100 ms 980-nm single laser pulse, and 1.5 W constant 1940-nm laser power. Ideal stimulation parameters to generate transient pain were found to be a 26.6 °C peak temperature rise and 0.67 s pain duration. In our model of tonic pain, 5 min of tonic stimulation produced a temperature change of 53.7 ± 1.3 °C with 1.6 ± 0.2% variation. When the transient and tonic stimulation protocols were combined, no significant difference was observed depending on the order of stimuli. Obvious tail-flick movements were observed. The TFL value of transient pain was 3.0 ± 0.8 s, and it was 4.4 ± 1.8 s for tonic pain stimulation. This study shows that our novel design can provide effective stimulation of transient pain and stable tonic pain. Furthermore, it can also provide a reliable combination of transient and consistent stimulations for basic studies of pain perception.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Dr. He Huang from Chinese Academy of Medical Science and Peking Union Medical College, Dr. Jinfu Liu from Fibolaser Technologies Co., Ltd., and Mr. Bolin Sun from Hnreidu Inc. for technological support in the study of this laser generator.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chinese Academy of Medical Science & Peking Union Medical College, Institute of Biomedical Engineering, 236Baidi Road, Tianjin, China

    Xiaoxi Dong, Tianjun Liu, Han Wang, Jichun Yang, Zhuying Chen, Yong Hu & Yingxin Li

  2. Department of Orthopaedics and Traumatology, The University of Hong Kong, QMH504 Professiorial Blk, Hong Kong, China

    Yong Hu

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  1. Xiaoxi Dong
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  2. Tianjun Liu
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  3. Han Wang
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yingxin Li.

Ethics declarations

This work is supported by the fundamental research funds for the central universities. The funders of the study had no role in study design, data collection, data analysis, data interpretation, or writing of the report. The corresponding author had full access to all the data in the study and had final responsibility for the decision to submit for publication.

All procedures performed in studies involving animals were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of Peking Union Medical College (Animal Experimental Ethical Number 2016-002).

This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors.

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The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

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Dong, X., Liu, T., Wang, H. et al. A novel dual-wavelength laser stimulator to elicit transient and tonic nociceptive stimulation. Lasers Med Sci 32, 1001–1008 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10103-017-2200-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10103-017-2200-3

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