Distraction and cognitive control independently impact parietal and prefrontal response to pain

Abstract

Previous studies found that distracting someone through a challenging activity leads to hypoalgesia, an effect mediated by parietal and prefrontal processes. Other studies suggest that challenging activities affect the ability to regulate one’s aching experiences, due to partially-common neural substrate between cognitive control and pain at the level the medial prefrontal cortex. We investigated effects of distraction and cognitive control on pain by delivering noxious stimulations during or after a Stroop paradigm (requiring high cognitive load) or a neutral condition. We found less intense and unpleasant subjective pain ratings during (compared to after) task execution. This hypoalgesia was associated with enhanced activity at the level of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the posterior parietal cortex, which also showed negative connectivity with the insula. Furthermore, multivariate pattern analysis revealed that distraction altered the neural response to pain, by making it more similar to that associated with previous Stroop tasks. All these effects were independent of the nature of the task which, instead, led to a localized neural modulation around the anterior cingulate cortex. Overall, our study underscores the role played by two facets of human executive functions, which exert independent influence in the neural response of pain.

Pain intensity and self‐perceived burden mediate the relationship between family functioning and pain catastrophizing in patients with neuropathic pain

“…They discuss and mention their pain more frequently, which unintentionally increases the patient's attention to pain, which is not conducive to pain relief (Silvestrini & Corradi-Dell'Acqua, 2023). Therefore, T A B L E 3 Analysis of mediating effects of pain intensity and selfperceived burden on family functioning and pain catastrophizing (n = 252).…”

“…One possible explanation is that for patients with good family functioning, family members communicate and care more about them. They discuss and mention their pain more frequently, which unintentionally increases the patient's attention to pain, which is not conducive to pain relief (Silvestrini & Corradi‐Dell'Acqua, 2023). Therefore, when constructing an effective model of family functioning for patients with NP, combining this with intervention programs that target pain concerns, such as distraction (Kim et al, 2022) or mindfulness‐based approaches (Riegner et al, 2023), maybe more advantageous.…”

Cognitive exertion affects the appraisal of one’s own and other people’s pain

“…Furthermore, it has been repeatedly shown to influence sensitivity to concurrent and subsequent pain response 9 – 11 , 52 – 55 . In the present study, we used the same version of the Stroop-task used in our previous research on the role of cognitive exertion aftereffects and pain 10 , 11 , 54 , 56 . In particular, each participant performed neutral and interference conditions of the numerical Stroop task 57 .…”