Inverted Perceptual Judgment of Nociceptive Stimuli at Threshold Level following Inconsistent Cues.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

The perception of pain is susceptible to modulation by psychological and contextual factors. It has been shown that subjects judge noxious stimuli as more painful in a respective suggestive context, which disappears when the modifying context is resolved. However, a context in which subjects judge the painfulness of a nociceptive stimulus in exactly the opposite direction to that of the cues has never been shown so far.

Methods

Nociceptive stimuli (300 ms intranasal gaseous CO2) at the individual pain threshold level were applied after a visual cue announcing the stimulus as either "no pain", merely a "stimulus", or "pain". Among the stimuli at threshold level, other CO2 stimuli that were clearly below or above pain threshold were randomly interspersed. These were

SUBMITTER: Walter C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4493070 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature