Rhythmic changes in pain can lead to corresponding modulations of EEG amplitudes in theta, alpha, and beta bands. But the question remains open as to whether these modulations are actually tracking pain, or maybe rather saliency or stimulus intensity. The question is of some importance because a marker of pain per se could be useful for tracking felt pain without a verbal response, and could be useful in investigating interventions for treating pain (such as suggestion).  Here, Leu et al. (2023) will address the question of whether modulations reflect saliency or else the intensity of pain, by using an oddball paradigm in which most trials are a pain stimulus of a certain intensity, and oddball trials will sometimes occur, at either a higher intensity or a lower intensity than the baseline ones. If the modulations reflect salience, the modulation at the frequency of the oddball will be similar for high and low intensity oddballs. However, if the modulations reflect pain intensity, the modulations for the low rather than high oddball condition will be lower.

 

The Stage 1 manuscript was evaluated over three rounds of in-depth peer review, the first two consisting of substantial comments from two scholars with relevant expertise, and the third consisting of a close review by the recommender. Based on detailed responses to the reviewers' comments, the recommender judged that the manuscript met the Stage 1 criteria and therefore awarded in-principle acceptance (IPA).

 

URL to the preregistered Stage 1 protocol: https://osf.io/qbrf2
 
Level of bias control achieved: Level 6. No part of the data or evidence that will be used to answer the research question yet exists and no part will be generated until after IPA.

 

List of eligible PCI RR-friendly journals:
 

 

References
 
1. Leu, C., Forest, S., Legrain, V., & Liberati, G. (2023). The effect of stimulus saliency on the modulation of pain-related ongoing neural oscillations: a Registered Report. In principle acceptance of Version 4 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/qbrf2