Cookies on this website

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you click 'Accept all cookies' we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies and you won't see this message again. If you click 'Reject all non-essential cookies' only necessary cookies providing core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility will be enabled. Click 'Find out more' for information on how to change your cookie settings.

Predictions about sensory input exert a dominant effect on what we perceive, and this is particularly true for the experience of pain. However, it remains unclear what component of prediction, from an information-theoretic perspective, controls this effect. We used a vicarious pain observation paradigm to study how the underlying statistics of predictive information modulate experience. Subjects observed judgments that a group of people made to a painful thermal stimulus, before receiving the same stimulus themselves. We show that the mean observed rating exerted a strong assimilative effect on subjective pain. In addition, we show that observed uncertainty had a specific and potent hyperalgesic effect. Using computational functional magnetic resonance imaging, we found that this effect correlated with activity in the periaqueductal gray. Our results provide evidence for a novel form of cognitive hyperalgesia relating to perceptual uncertainty, induced here by vicarious observation, with control mediated by the brainstem pain modulatory system.

Original publication

DOI

10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4984-12.2013

Type

Journal article

Journal

J Neurosci

Publication Date

27/03/2013

Volume

33

Pages

5638 - 5646

Keywords

Brain Mapping, Computer Simulation, Female, Humans, Image Processing, Computer-Assisted, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Models, Biological, Oxygen, Pain, Pain Measurement, Pain Perception, Pain Threshold, Periaqueductal Gray, Physical Stimulation, Uncertainty