McGill.CA / Alan Edwards Centre for Research on Pain / Facilities

This suite is located in the Strathcona Building .It is fully equipped to perform detailed sensory examination of human subjects, including Quantitative Sensory Testing (QST).

List of Equipment:

  • Soundproof, humidity and temperature (0.5 deg C) controlled room
  • Testing chairs (one can be reclined to full Trendelenburg position)
  • PATHWAY Pain & Sensory Evaluation System (Medoc), including the model CHEPS (Contact Heat- Evoked Potential Stimulator) and the model ATS (Advanced Thermal Stimulator). Using contact thermal probes, the PATHWAY allows the evaluation of cold and warm detection thresholds, cold pain and heat pain detection thresholds, tolerance thresholds as well as the application of supra-threshold painful stimuli of predetermined temperatures. The CHEPS provides a fast rise time of up to 70C/s. A standard and a MRI-compatible CHEPS probe (diameter: 27 mm) are available as well as a standard and a MRI-compatible ATS probe 30 mm x 30 mm and an additional standard ATS probe 16 mm x 16 mm.
  • NESLAB RTE-111 refrigerated /heated bath and circulator (ThermoFisher). The water bath has a volume of 12 (L) x 20 (W) x 15 (D) cm3 and maintains the water at a predetermined temperature between -25C and +150C. Cold or hot water immersions are for example used for tonic pain stimuli of a large surface.
  • Von Frey filaments (Stoelting) for the application of mechanical punctuate stimuli in the noxious and non-noxious range.
  • Von Frey Filaments OptiHair for the application of mechanical punctuate stimuli .125mN - 512mN range (MARSTOCK nervtest).
  • Rydel-Seiffer tuning fork 64/128Hz for semi-quantitative assessment of vibration thresholds.
  • Two types of algometers for the application of (deep) pressure stimuli: Either electronic algometer (JTech Medical) (two tips available: either plane surface with 1 cm diameter or concave tip with 2 cm diameter for e.g. joint examination) or manual algometer (tip surface: 1 cm diameter).
  • Hand grip dynamometer (North Coast) enabling hand contractions at a predetermined force (range: 0 to 30 pounds/square inch).
  • Laser Doppler MoorLDI-2 (Moor Instruments Limited) for measurement of blood flow in the microcirculation of large body areas.**Not functional at moment**
  • 2-point discriminator (TouchTest)
  • Pin wheel
  • Reflex hammer
  • Examining Bed
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