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Enhanced pain-related conditioning for face compared to hand pain
- Source :
- PLoS ONE, PLoS ONE, Vol 15, Iss 6, p e0234160 (2020)
- Publication Year :
- 2020
-
Abstract
- Pain is evolutionarily hardwired to signal potential danger and threat. It has been proposed that altered pain-related associative learning processes, i.e., emotional or fear conditioning, might contribute to the development and maintenance of chronic pain. Pain in or near the face plays a special role in pain perception and processing, especially with regard to increased pain-related fear and unpleasantness. However, differences in pain-related learning mechanisms between the face and other body parts have not yet been investigated. Here, we examined body-site specific differences in associative emotional conditioning using electrical stimuli applied to the face and the hand. Acquisition, extinction, and reinstatement of cue-pain associations were assessed in a 2-day emotional conditioning paradigm using a within-subject design. Data of 34 healthy subjects revealed higher fear of face pain as compared to hand pain. During acquisition, face pain (as compared to hand pain) led to a steeper increase in pain-related negative emotions in response to conditioned stimuli (CS) as assessed using valence ratings. While no significant differences between both conditions were observed during the extinction phase, a reinstatement effect for face but not for hand pain was revealed on the descriptive level and contingency awareness was higher for face pain compared to hand pain. Our results indicate a stronger propensity to acquire cue-pain-associations for face compared to hand pain, which might also be reinstated more easily. These differences in learning and resultant pain-related emotions might play an important role in the chronification and high prevalence of chronic facial pain and stress the evolutionary significance of pain in the head and face. CA - Schmidt
- Subjects :
- Male
Conditioning, Classical
Emotions
Medizin
Social Sciences
Audiology
Extinction, Psychological
0302 clinical medicine
Learning and Memory
Cognition
Behavioral Conditioning
Medicine and Health Sciences
Psychology
Fear conditioning
Multidisciplinary
05 social sciences
Chronic pain
Pain Perception
Fear
Memory Recall
Medicine
Female
Cues
Anatomy
Research Article
Conditioned emotional response
Adult
Pain Threshold
medicine.medical_specialty
Science
Pain
Surgical and Invasive Medical Procedures
050105 experimental psychology
03 medical and health sciences
Memory
Threshold of pain
medicine
Humans
Learning
0501 psychology and cognitive sciences
Valence (psychology)
Behavior
Recall
Functional Electrical Stimulation
Cognitive Psychology
Biology and Life Sciences
Extinction (psychology)
medicine.disease
Hand
Electric Stimulation
Associative learning
Face
Mental Recall
Cognitive Science
Conditioned Response
Head
030217 neurology & neurosurgery
Neuroscience
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- PLoS ONE, PLoS ONE, Vol 15, Iss 6, p e0234160 (2020)
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....51716433121289dbdd632ed40ddb47f8