Isolating Brain Mechanisms of Expectancy Effects on Pain: Cue-Based Stimulus Expectancies versus Placebo-Based Treatment Expectancies.

ABSTRACT: Clinical trials, laboratory experiments, and neuroimaging studies provide converging evidence that pain is highly sensitive to expectations, whether based on the psychosocial context surrounding treatment (e.g., placebo analgesia) or transient cues that provide information about painful events (e.g., pain-predictive cues). We asked whether placebo analgesia and pain-predictive cues modulate pain through the same mechanisms or dissociable brain pathways. Forty healthy volunteers of both sexes rated pain in response to noxious heat during functional magnetic resonance imaging. We crossed pain-predictive cues, which induce expectations for high or low pain on a trial-by-trial basis, with administration of an inert placebo cream or a control cream. Behavioral analyses revealed a significant in

SUBMITTER: Necka EA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12369932 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature