Table 1.

The PICOS components of the research question and respective search terms used.

PICOS component	Description	Key search terms
Population	Human adults experiencing and not experiencing pain	—
Intervention	Sensory entrainment including auditory, visual and tactile	‘Sensory entrainment’ OR ‘auditory entrainment’ OR ‘sound entrainment’ OR ‘acoustic entrainment’ OR ‘audiovisual entrainment’ OR ‘music entrainment’ OR ‘visual entrainment’ OR ‘photic entrainment’ OR ‘light entrainment’ OR ‘tactile entrainment’ OR ‘touch entrainment’ OR ‘vibration entrainment’ OR ‘monaural beats’ OR ‘binaural beats’ OR ‘isochronic beats’ OR ‘isochronic tones’ OR ‘binaural tones’ OR ‘monaural tones’ OR ‘binaural sounds’ OR ‘monaural sounds’ OR ‘isochronic sounds’ OR ‘flashing light’ OR ‘flashing screen’ OR ‘LED glasses’ OR ‘flashes of light’ OR ‘light flashes’ OR ‘pitch panning’ OR ‘slow brushing’ OR ‘fast brushing’ OR ‘brainwave entrainment’ OR ‘oscillatory entrainment’ OR ‘neural entrainment’ OR ‘light pulses’ OR ‘gamma entrainment’ OR ‘alpha entrainment’ OR ‘beta entrainment’ or ‘theta entrainment’ OR ‘delta entrainment’ OR ‘hemi-sync’ OR ‘hemisync’ OR ‘hemispheric synchronised’ OR ‘auditory beats’ OR ‘vibration therapy’ OR ‘rhythmic stimulation’ OR ‘rhythmic sensory stimulation’
Control	Sham stimulation, control stimulation, no stimulation	—
Outcomes	Pain perception and intensity	‘Pain perception’ OR ‘pain threshold’ OR ‘pain measurement’ OR ‘pain management’ OR ‘pain assessment’ OR ‘pain severity’ OR ‘analgesia’ OR ‘analgesic effect’ OR ‘analgesic activity’ OR ‘nociception’ OR ‘antinociceptive’ OR ‘visual analogue scale’ OR ‘numerical rating scale’
Studies	Experimental and observational studies	—