Psychological influences on pain and its assessment

Pain is a personal experience that is sensitive to not only noxious input, but also the psychosocial context surrounding pain and its treatment. In this talk, I will introduce how we study the neural mechanisms that support psychological modulation of pain. I will review studies that illustrate how pain is shaped by expectations and verbal instructions, and how social factors shape pain and its assessment. I will show that expectations and learning modulate pain and affect through domain-general neural mechanisms. I will also present new data on how learning can improve pain assessment accuracy.

Dr. Lauren Atlas is a Senior Investigator at NIH/NCCIH.
 

NACS Seminars are free and open to the public.