Stimulation of human thalamus for pain relief: possible modulatory circuits revealed by positron emission tomography. J. Neurophysiol. 80: 3326-3330, 1998. Stimulation of the somatosensory thalamus was used for more than 2 decades to treat chronic pain in the human. However, despite clinical reports of successful results, little is known about the actual mechanisms mediating this form of stimul...

BACKGROUND The authors examined the effects of thermal stimulation on electrodermal activity (EDA) in patients with primary palmar hyperhidrosis (PPH). The authors hypothesised that temperature changes may induce abnormal sudomotor reactions because of simultaneous activation of sudomotor centres through thermal and emotional pathways, and compared patients before and after thoracoscopic sympat...

When warm thermal stimulators are placed on the ring and index fingers of one hand, and a neutral-temperature stimulator on the middle finger, all three fingers feel warm. This illusion is known as thermal referral (TR). On one interpretation, the heterogenous thermal signals are overridden by homogenous tactile signals. This cross-modal thermo-tactile interaction could reflect a process of obj...

Infrared neural stimulation (INS) pulses at water-absorbed mid-IR wavelengths could provide a non-invasive and safe modality for stimulating peripheral and cranial nerves and central nervous system neurons. The excitation mechanism underlying INS activation is thought to be mediated by photo-thermal tissue transients, which can also potentially be induced using extrinsic absorbers (Photo-Absorb...

Since huge amounts of CH4 are bound in natural gas hydrates occurring at active and passive continental margins and in permafrost regions, the production of natural gas from hydrate-bearing sediments has become of more and more interest. Three different methods to destabilize hydrates and release the CH4 gas are discussed in principle: thermal stimulation, depressurization and chemical stimulat...

low level lasers, cold or soft lasers: these lasers do not produce thermal effects on tissues and induce photoreactions in cellsthrough light stimulation which is called photobiostimulation. power of these lasers is usually under 250mw. the main point differentiating low level lasers and high power ones is the activation of photochemical reactions without heat formation. the most important fact...