Nociceptive Processing of Elite Athletes Varies Between Sport-Specific Loads: An EEG-based Study Approach.

INTRODUCTION: For the downstream nociceptive processing of elite athletes recent studies indicate that athletes probably tolerate more pain as compared to a normally active population. Phenotyping the nociceptive processing of athletes in different types of endurance sports can provide insight into training-specific effects, which may help in understanding the long-term effects of specific exercise.

METHODS: 26 elite endurance athletes from the disciplines of rowing, triathlon and running, and 26 age and sex-matched, recreationally active control subjects the subjective pain perception and processing of standardized noxious stimuli were investigated by EEG. This included standardized heat pain thresholds (HPT) and contact heat-evoked potentials (CHEPS) from heat stimulation, measured with EEG as well as pinprick-evoked potentials (PEP) from mechanical stimulation.

RESULTS: Following noxious stimulation, athletes showed a higher activation of the event-related spectral perturbation (ERSP) patterns in the N2P2 EEG response at the Cz Electrode compared to the controls. Following noxious contact heat stimulation, triathletes had a higher ERSP activation compared to the controls, while the rowers had a higher ERSP activation following noxious mechanical stimulation. Also, HPTs in triathletes were increased despite their increased central activation following thermal stimulation. We found a correlation between increased HPTs and training hours and years, though athletes did not differ within these variables.

CONCLUSIONS: Although we were able to identify differences between athletes of different endurance sports, the reasons and implications of these differences remain unclear. The study of sport-specific somatosensory profiles may help to understand the mechanisms of exercise-related long-term effects on pain processing and perception. Furthermore, sport-specific somatosensory effects may support the personalization of exercise interventions and identify risk factors for chronic pain in elite athletes.