Synthetic heat at mild temperatures

Synthetic heat, also known as the heat grill illusion, occurs when contact with spatially adjacent warm and cold stimuli produce a sensation of "heat'. This phenomenon has been explained as a painful perception that occurs when warm stimulation inhibits cold-sensitive neurons in the spinothalamic tract (STT), which in turn unmasks activity in the pain pathway caused by stimulation of C-polymodal nociceptors (CPNs). The "unmasking model" was tested in experiment 1 by combining warm (35-40degreesC) and cool (greater than or equal to27degreesC) stimuli that were too mild to stimulate CPNs. After discovering that these temperatures produced nonpainful heat, experiment 2 was designed to determine whether heat could be induced when near-threshold cooling was paired with mild warmth, and whether lowering the base temperature for cooling would increase the noxious (burning, stinging) components of heat for fixed cooling steps of 1-3degreesC. Cooling by just 1degreesC from a base temperature of 33degreesC led to reports of heat on more than 1/3 of trials, and cooling by just 3degreesC evoked heat on 75% of trials. Lowering the base temperature to 31 or 29 degreesC increased reports of heat and burning but did not produce significant reports of pain. Perception of nonpainful heat at such mild temperatures indicates either that cold-sensitive nociceptors with thresholds very similar to cold fibers innervate hairy skin in humans, or that heat can result from integration of warm fiber and cold fiber activity, perhaps via convergence on nonspecific (e.g., WDR) neurons in the STT.