Tapentadol and oxycodone affect resting-state functional brain connectivity: A randomized, placebo-controlled trial.

This study has shown that the functional connectivity between thalamus and other brain areas central in pain processing was different for the tapentadol and oxycodone treatments compared to placebo. This supports that the two treatments exert different mechanism of action. Further studies with larger sample sizes need to be carried out in order to validate this.