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Aging effects on the perception of noxious and non-noxious thermal stimuli applied to the face

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Abstract

While age-related sensory deficits have been demonstrated for the senses of vision, audition, and the chemical senses, reports have differed with regard to changes in painful and non-painful thermal sensation. One hundred and seventy-nine healthy, community-dwelling individuals aged 20–89 years rated threshold and suprathreshold warming, cooling, and painful stimuli delivered to glabrous (upper lip) and hairy (chin) sites of the face in three separate testing sessions. Threshold measures were determined by the Method of Limits. Suprathreshold stimuli were assessed by a cross-modality matching procedure and a Pooled Adjacent Violators Algorithm-based analysis. The analyses of the effect of age on the threshold and suprathreshold measures of sensory performance yielded disparate findings. There are modest changes in warming and cooling perception with increased age, but pain perception is relatively unaffected. There is a slight diminution in threshold and suprathreshold thermal performance with increasing aging.

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Author notes

  1. R. O’Brien

    Present address: Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, The Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, Ohio, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Claude Denson Pepper Center for Research on Oral Health in Aging, JHMHSC, University of Florida, Box 100416, Gainesville, Florida, 32610-0416, USA

    M. W. Heft Ph.D., B. Y. Cooper, K. K. O’Brien & E. Hemp

  2. Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA

    M. W. Heft Ph.D. & B. Y. Cooper

  3. Department of Statistics, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA

    R. O’Brien

Authors
  1. M. W. Heft Ph.D.
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  2. B. Y. Cooper
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  3. K. K. O’Brien
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  4. E. Hemp
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  5. R. O’Brien
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Heft, M.W., Cooper, B.Y., O’Brien, K.K. et al. Aging effects on the perception of noxious and non-noxious thermal stimuli applied to the face. Aging Clin Exp Res 8, 35–41 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03340113

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03340113

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