Reward Enhances Pain Discrimination in Humans.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Becker S
PROVIDER: S-EPMC7513004 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Sep
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Reward Enhances Pain Discrimination in Humans.
Becker Susanne S Löffler Martin M Seymour Ben B
Psychological science 20200820 9
The notion that reward inhibits pain is a well-supported observation in both humans and animals, allowing suppression of pain reflexes to acquired rewarding stimuli. However, a blanket inhibition of pain by reward would also impair pain discrimination. In contrast, early counterconditioning experiments implied that reward might actually spare pain discrimination. To test this hypothesis, we investigated whether discriminative performance was enhanced or inhibited by reward. We found in adult hum ...[more]
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