Doubling Your Payoff: Winning Pain Relief Engages Endogenous Pain Inhibition

When in pain, pain relief is much sought after, particularly for individuals with chronic pain. In analogy to augmentation of the hedonic experience (“liking”) of a reward by the motivation to obtain a reward (“wanting”), the seeking of pain relief in a motivated state might increase the experience...

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Bibliographic Details
Published ineNeuro Vol. 2; no. 4; p. ENEURO.0029-15.2015
Main Authors Becker, Susanne, Gandhi, Wiebke, Kwan, Saskia, Ahmed, Alysha-Karima, Schweinhardt, Petra
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Society for Neuroscience 01.07.2015
Subjects
New Research
reward
relief
motivation
pain modulation
perception
Online AccessGet full text
ISSN2373-2822
2373-2822
DOI10.1523/ENEURO.0029-15.2015

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Summary:When in pain, pain relief is much sought after, particularly for individuals with chronic pain. In analogy to augmentation of the hedonic experience (“liking”) of a reward by the motivation to obtain a reward (“wanting”), the seeking of pain relief in a motivated state might increase the experience of pain relief when obtained. We tested this hypothesis in a psychophysical experiment in healthy human subjects, by assessing potential pain-inhibitory effects of pain relief “won” in a wheel of fortune game compared with pain relief without winning, exploiting the fact that the mere chance of winning induces a motivated state. The results show pain-inhibitory effects of pain relief obtained by winning in behaviorally assessed pain perception and ratings of pain intensity. Further, the higher participants scored on the personality trait novelty seeking, the more pain inhibition was induced. These results provide evidence that pain relief, when obtained in a motivated state, engages endogenous pain-inhibitory systems beyond the pain reduction that underlies the relief in the first place. Consequently, such pain relief might be used to improve behavioral pain therapy, inducing a positive, perhaps self-amplifying feedback loop of reduced pain and improved functionality.
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Author contributions: S.B., W.G., and P.S. designed the research. S.B., S.K., and A.-K.A. performed the research. S.B., W.G., and P.S. analyzed the data. S.B. and P.S. wrote the manuscript.
This research was supported by an International Association for the Study of Pain Collaborative Research Grant, a Postdoctoral Fellowship for Leading Early Career Researchers funded by the Baden-Württemberg Foundation, and a Research Fellowship from the German Research Foundation to S.B., the Merit Scholarship Program for Foreign Students (Quebec), a Quebec Bio-Imaging Network Scholarship for foreign students, and a PhD Studentship in Pain Research from The Louise and Alan Edwards Foundation to W.G., and a Canadian Institutes of Health Research Operating Grant to P.S.
The authors declare no competing financial interests.
ISSN:2373-2822
2373-2822
DOI:10.1523/ENEURO.0029-15.2015