title: Bogus visual feedback alters onset of movement-evoked pain in people with neck pain.
abstract: Pain is a protective perceptual response shaped by contextual, psychological, and sensory inputs that suggest danger to the body. Sensory cues suggesting that a body part is moving toward a painful position may credibly signal the threat and thereby modulate pain. In this experiment, we used virtual reality to investigate whether manipulating visual proprioceptive cues could alter movement-evoked pain in 24 people with neck pain. We hypothesized that pain would occur at a lesser degree of head rotation when visual feedback overstated true rotation and at a greater degree of rotation when visual feedback understated true rotation. Our hypothesis was clearly supported: When vision overstated the amount of rotation, pain occurred at 7% less rotation than under conditions of accurate visual feedback, and when vision understated rotation, pain occurred at 6% greater rotation than under conditions of accurate visual feedback. We concluded that visual-proprioceptive information modulated the threshold for movement-evoked pain, which suggests that stimuli that become associated with pain can themselves trigger pain.
authors.affiliation: Sansom Institute for Health Research, University of South Australia.
authors.forename: Daniel S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Harvie
authors.affiliation: School of Information Technology and Mathematical Science, University of South Australia.
authors.forename: Markus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Broecker
authors.affiliation: School of Information Technology and Mathematical Science, University of South Australia.
authors.forename: Ross T
authors.initials: RT
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.affiliation: Research Group on Health Psychology, University of Leuven.
authors.forename: Ann
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Meulders
authors.affiliation: Sansom Institute for Health Research, University of South Australia.
authors.forename: Victoria J
authors.initials: VJ
authors.lastname: Madden
authors.affiliation: Sansom Institute for Health Research, University of South Australia lorimer.moseley@gmail.com.
authors.forename: G Lorimer
authors.initials: GL
authors.lastname: Moseley
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003198:Computer Simulation; D003463:Cues; D004311:Double-Blind Method; D019054:Evoked Potentials, Motor / Q000502:physiology*; D056228:Feedback, Sensory / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D019547:Neck Pain / Q000503:physiopathology*; D011434:Proprioception; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D016059:Range of Motion, Articular
keywords: body representation; illusions; movement; multisensory processing; open data; pain; perception; redirected walking; virtual reality