title: Response inhibition predicts painful task duration and performance in healthy individuals performing a cold pressor task in a motivational context.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Long-term avoidance of painful activities has shown to be dysfunctional in chronic pain. Pain may elicit escape or avoidance responses automatically, particularly when pain-related fear is high. A conflict may arise between opposing short-term escape/avoidance goals to reduce pain and long-term approach goals to receive a reward. An inhibitory control system may resolve this conflict. It was hypothesized that reduced response inhibition would be associated with greater escape/avoidance during pain, particularly among subjects with higher pain-related fear.
  
  
  METHODS
  Response inhibition was measured with the stop-signal task, and pain-related fear with the Fear of Pain Questionnaire. Participants completed a tone-detection task (TDT) in which they could earn money while being exposed to cold pressor pain. Escape/avoidance was operationalized as the hand immersion time during a cold pressor task (CPT) and the performance on the TDT.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Poorer response inhibition was associated with shorter CPT immersion duration and with worse TDT performance. Pain after the CPT was associated with pain-related fear, but not with response inhibition. No supportive evidence was found for the hypothesis that the relation between inhibition and escape/avoidance would be most pronounced for those with higher pain-related fear. In contrast, the relation between response inhibition and number of hits on the TDT was most pronounced for those with lower pain-related fear.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The findings suggest that individuals with a stronger ability to inhibit responses in a stop-signal task are better able to inhibit escape/avoidance responses elicited by pain, in the service of a conflicting approach goal.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical and Health Psychology, Utrecht University, The Netherlands; Department of Clinical Psychological Science, Maastricht University, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: P A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Karsdorp
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Geenen
authors.forename: J W S
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Vlaeyen
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001007:Anxiety / Q000523:psychology; D003080:Cold Temperature; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D005239:Fear / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007266:Inhibition, Psychological; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation / Q000502:physiology*; D010146:Pain / Q000523:psychology*; D011312:Pressure; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D011930:Reaction Time; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult