Effects of positive and negative expectations on human pain perception engage separate but interrelated and dependently regulated cerebral mechanisms
Journal
Journal of Neuroscience
Journal Volume
39
Journal Issue
7
Pages
1261-1274
Date Issued
2019
Author(s)
Abstract
Expectations substantially influence pain perception, but the relationship between positive and negative expectations remains unclear. Recent evidence indicates that the integration between pain-related expectations and prediction errors is crucial for pain perception, which suggests that aversive prediction error-associated regions, such as the anterior insular cortex (aIC) and rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC), may play a pivotal role in expectation-induced pain modulation and help to delineate the relationship between positive and negative expectations. In a stimulus expectancy paradigm combining fMRI in healthy volunteers of both sexes, we found that, although positive and negative expectations respectively engaged the right aIC and right rACC to modulate pain, their associated activations and pain rating changes were significantly correlated. When positive and negative expectations modulated pain, the right aIC and rACC exhibited opposite coupling with periaqueductal gray (PAG) and the mismatch between actual and expected pain respectively modulated their coupling with PAG and thalamus across individuals. Participants’ certainty about expectations predicted the extent of pain modulation, with positive expectations involving connectivity between aIC and hippocampus, a region regulating anxiety, and negative expectations engaging connectivity between rACC and lateral orbitofrontal cortex, a region reflecting outcome value and certainty. Interestingly, the strength of these certainty-related connectivities was also significantly associated between positive and negative expectations. These findings suggest that aversive prediction-error-related regions interact with pain-processing circuits to underlie stimulus expectancy effects on pain, with positive and negative expectations engaging dissociable but interrelated neural responses that are dependently regulated by individual certainty about expectations. ? 2019 the authors.
Subjects
Anterior cingulate cortex; Expectation; Functional magnetic resonance imaging; Insula; Pain; Prediction error
SDGs
Other Subjects
adult; anterior cingulate; anxiety; article; controlled study; dissociation; expectancy; expectation; female; functional magnetic resonance imaging; hippocampus; human; insula; lateral orbitofrontal cortex; male; modulation; nerve potential; nociception; periaqueductal gray matter; prediction; stimulus; thalamus; volunteer; anticipation; association; brain; brain mapping; cingulate gyrus; diagnostic imaging; nuclear magnetic resonance imaging; pain; pain measurement; pathophysiology; prefrontal cortex; psychology; young adult; Adult; Anticipation, Psychological; Brain; Brain Mapping; Cues; Female; Gyrus Cinguli; Hippocampus; Humans; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Male; Pain; Pain Measurement; Pain Perception; Periaqueductal Gray; Prefrontal Cortex; Thalamus; Young Adult
Publisher
Society for Neuroscience
Type
journal article