EEG Reveals Robust Within-Person but Unstable Between-Person Neural Encoding of Pain

Abstract

The perception of pain varies both within and between individuals, even when sensory input remains constant. Understanding how the brain encodes these intra- and interindividual variations is essential for elucidating the neural mechanisms of pain in health and disease. Yet, previous findings have been inconsistent, and their robustness, in terms of both repeatability and replicability, has remained unclear. Here, we used electroencephalography (EEG) in 161 healthy participants to re-investigate the neural correlates of intra- and inter-individual variations in the perception of brief painful stimuli, independent of stimulus intensity. Using Bayesian multivariate multi-model regression, we related pain ratings to evoked (N1, N2, P2) and induced oscillatory responses (alpha, beta, gamma). To assess the robustness of our findings, the experiment was repeated after four weeks in the same participants and replicated in an independent cohort (n = 111). This design allowed us to examine within-person variability at both short (moment-to-moment) and long (day-to-day) timescales. Inter-individual differences in pain were primarily associated with the P2 response, an effect that was repeatable in the same but not replicable in the independent cohort. In contrast, intra-individual variations were explained by a multicomponent EEG pattern that was both repeatable across time and replicable across cohorts. These findings demonstrate that intra- and inter-individual variability in pain is differentially encoded in the human brain and reveal greater robustness of within-person brain-behavior associations. EEG markers may therefore be more suitable for tracking longitudinal changes in pain within individuals than for comparing pain sensitivity across individuals.