Variable Perception of Cutaneous Stimulation

Perception of cutaneous sensory stimulation shows a large range of variability across multiple populations. Understanding this variability is critical to medical practice as interpretation of discomfort and pain is critical to diagnosis and treatment. Further, procedural medicine involves inflicting pain on patients in the form of injection of local anesthetic. Our protocol aims to determine how patients differentially interpret the non-noxious stimulation of vibration and the differences in perceiving anesthestic injection after the vibratory stimulus. We will explore how this ranges across all patients treated in a dermatological surgery out-patient setting. The goal is to identify which variables, such as age, gender, medical history, influence how sensation is interpreted.