Somatotopy of nociceptive responses in the human spinal cord

This Letter to the Editor of the journal Pain addresses the study by Nash and colleagues (Pain 2013;154:776-781), reporting fMRI somatotopic responses to noxious stimulations within the human spinal cord. Spinal cord fMRI, although a rapidly expanding field, is still hampered by significant technical shortcomings. This paper is welcome, in that it introduces significant technical novelty. However, more details are needed about the methods followed, in order to grasp the procedures and to assess their actual efficacy. Moreover, the spatial specificity of the responses is not fully supported by the results, both regarding the spinal cord site and side.