At a glance
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The Influence of Expectations, Attention and Test Paradigm on the Efficacy of the Pain Processing System
In Brief
An observational study for Pain. Completed, enrolled 72 participants across 1 site.
Detailed Summary
Conditioned pain modulation (CPM) is the endogenous pain relief mechanism responsible for the "pain-inhibits-pain" phenomenon. This mechanism can be activated experimentally, and its efficiency evaluated by experimental pain tests. According to the "pain-inhibits-pain" principle, during such an experimental testing paradigm, a painful test stimulus is typically applied, followed by a conditioning stimulus. The effect of the conditioning stimulus on the test stimulus is examined to determine whether or not the conditioning stimulus elicits an inhibitory effect. With this study, the investigators want to examine in pain-free adults whether and to what extend the efficacy of CPM is influenced by 1) attention (focus versus distraction), 2) intrinsic expectations (pain reduction versus no change versus pain increase) with regard to pain due to the CPM paradigm used, and 3) the order of application of the test stimulus and conditioning stimulus (sequential versus parallel paradigm).