Table 3.

Lateralized neural correlates of clinical spontaneous pain.

Study	Condition	Hemisphere	Region	Findings
Buckalew et al, 2008⁷⁰	Chronic low back pain	Left	Posterior parietal cortex	Decreased gray matter volume compared to pain-free older adults
Buckalew et al, 2008⁷⁰	Chronic low back pain	Left	Middle cingulate	Decreased white matter volume compared to pain-free older adults
Ji and Neugebauer, 2009⁷¹	(Pre-clinical model) Arthritis pain in rodents	Right	Amygdala	Increased responsiveness irrespective of side of induced arthritis
Kobayashi et al, 2009⁷²	Chronic low back pain (no information on side of pain)	Right	Isula, supplementary motor, and posterior cingulate cortex	Increased activation compared to healthy controls
Simons et al, 2014⁷³	CRPS (8/12 with left limb pain)	Left	Amygdala	Left-lateralized changes in functional connectivity compared to healthy controls (although there were also changes in the connectivity of the right amygdala, albeit to fewer regions than the left amygdala)
Gonzalez-Roldan et al, 2016⁷⁴	Fibromyalgia	Right	Insula, superior and middle temporal gyri	Reduced power density of the delta EEG band compared to pain-free controls
			Middle frontal lobe and midcingulate gyrus	Greater power density than pain-free controls in two segments of the beta band
			Insula	Pain duration in FM patients was negatively correlated with delta power
Gomez-Beldarrain et al, 2016⁶⁷	Migraine (no information on side of pain)	Right	Anterior insula, anterior cingulate gyrus, and uncinate fasciculus	Patients with the poorest prognosis (those with chronic migraine despite therapy at six months) had a significantly lower fractional anisotropy
Yoon et al, 2016⁷⁵	Panic disorder (respiratory subtype)	Left	Caudal-middle-frontal, superior frontal, and posterior parietal areas	Decreased cortical thickness
Amaral et al, 2018⁶⁶	Migraine (5 bilateral, 9 side-shifting, 5 left, 1 right)	Left	Posterior cingulate	Negative correlation between the headache index improvement and cortical thickness changes
Yu et al, 2019⁷⁶	Parkinson’s disease-related pain	Right	Postcentral, precentral, supramarginal, middle temporal gyri and insular cortex	Altered connectivity after acupuncture treatment compared to healthy controls
Yu et al, 2019⁷⁶	Parkinson’s disease-related pain	Left	Middle temporal and precentral gyri
Zheng et al, 2020⁷⁷	(Pre-clinical model) Endometriosis model in rats	Right	Thalamus	(Pre-clinical model) Decreased regional homogeneity and the Nissl bodies were differently shaped compared to abdominal/ovary endometriosis, or sham groups.