Doctor trustworthiness influences pain and its neural correlates in virtual medical interactions.

ABSTRACT: Trust is an important component of the doctor-patient relationship and is associated with improved patient satisfaction and health outcomes. Previously, we reported that patient feelings of trust and similarity toward their clinician predicted reductions in evoked pain in response to painful heat stimulations. In the present study, we investigated the brain mechanisms underlying this effect. We used face stimuli previously developed using a data-driven computational modeling approach that differ in perceived trustworthiness and superimposed them on bodies dressed in doctors' attire. During functional magnetic resonance imaging, participants (n = 42) underwent a series of virtual medical interactions with these doctors during which they received painful heat stimulation as an analogue of a

SUBMITTER: Anderson SR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10068271 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature