Simultaneous tracking of multiple nociceptive thresholds: a simulation and human subject study

Monte Carlo simulations were performed to compare bias, precision and bandwidth of thresh-old estimates while varying the number of simultaneous tracked thresholds (1-7). An adaptive random staircase procedure was used as stimulus selection procedure while logistic regression was used to obtain threshold estimates. We found that the bias was similar in all simulations. Moreover, precision and bandwidth lowered with more simultaneous tracked thresholds. Three different numbers of simultaneous tracked thresholds were compared in a human sub-ject study. A cold pressor was applied as nociceptive conditioning stimulus. Electrocutaneous stimulation was used for nociceptive detection threshold tracking before, during and after the conditioning stimulus