Confidence in beliefs about pain predicts expectancy effects on pain perception and anticipatory processing in right anterior insula.
Psychological factors play a major role in exacerbating chronic pain. Effective self-management of pain is often hindered by inaccurate beliefs about the nature of pain which lead to a high degree of emotional reactivity. Probabilistic models of perception state that greater confidence (certainty) in beliefs increases their influence on perception and behavior. In this study, we treat confidence as a metacognitive process dissociable from the content of belief. We hypothesized that confidence is associated with anticipatory activation of areas of the pain matrix involved with top-down modulation of pain. Healthy volunteers rated their beliefs about the emotional distress that experimental pain would cause, and separately rated their level of confidence in this belief. Confidence predicted the influence of anticipation cues on experienced pain. We measured brain activity during anticipation of pain using high-density EEG and used electromagnetic tomography to determine neural substrates of this effect. Confidence correlated with activity in right anterior insula, posterior midcingulate and inferior parietal cortices during the anticipation of pain. Activity in the right anterior insula predicted a greater influence of anticipation cues on pain perception, whereas activity in right inferior parietal cortex predicted a decreased influence of anticipatory cues. The results support probabilistic models of pain perception and suggest that confidence in beliefs is an important determinant of expectancy effects on pain perception.
Brown
Christopher A
CA
Human Pain Research Group, Clinical Sciences Building, Hope Hospital, Salford M6 8HD, UK Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience, Functional Imaging Laboratory, 12 Queen Square, London WC1N 3BG, UK School of Psychological Sciences, University of Manchester, Zochonis Building, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK.
Seymour
Ben
B
El-Deredy
Wael
W
Jones
Anthony K P
AKP
D001288:Attention; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology*; D003071:Cognition; D003463:Cues; D003469:Culture; D004569:Electroencephalography / Q000379:methods*; D005073:Evoked Potentials, Somatosensory; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010146:Pain / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology*