Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Aug;25(7):1472-1481.
doi: 10.1002/ejp.1760. Epub 2021 Mar 26.

Intact pain modulation through manipulation of controllability and expectations in aging

Ana María González-Roldán  1 , Juan Lorenzo Terrasa  1 , Maria Angeles Prats-Sedano  2 , Carolina Sitges  1 , Marian van der Meulen  3 , Fernand Anton  3 , Pedro Montoya  1
Affiliations

Intact pain modulation through manipulation of controllability and expectations in aging

Ana María González-Roldán et al. Eur J Pain. 2021 Aug.

Abstract

Background: Pain expectation and controllability can modulate pain processing. However, little is known about age-related effects on these cognitive factors involved in pain control. This study assessed age-related brain changes associated with pain expectation and controllability.

Methods: 17 healthy older adults (9 men; 65.65 ± 4.34 years) and 18 healthy younger adults (8 men; 20.56 ± 5.56 years) participated in the study. Pain evoked potentials and pain ratings were recorded while participants received painful electrical stimuli under two different conditions of pain controllability over the intensity of the stimulation (self-controlled vs. computer controlled) and two conditions of pain expectations (high vs. low pain).

Results: Although the intensity of the painful stimulation was kept constant, all participants showed reduced pain perception in the controllable and low pain expectancy conditions. However, older participants showed reduced amplitudes of pain evoked potentials in the time window between 150 and 500 ms after stimulus onset as compared to younger participants. Moreover, younger participants showed greater negative amplitudes from 80 to 150 ms after stimulus onset for uncontrollable versus controllable pain.

Conclusions: These results suggest that although cognitive pain modulation is preserved during ageing, neural processing of pain is reduced in older adults.

Significance: This research describes the impact of age on cognitive pain modulation evoked by the manipulation of pain controllability and pain expectations. Our findings constitute a first step in the understanding of the greater vulnerability of older individuals to chronic pain. Moreover, we show that older adults can benefit from cognitive pain control mechanisms to increase the efficacy of pain treatments.

Keywords: ageing; cognitive modulation; controllability; electroencephalography; expectations; pain.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

REFERENCES

    1. Boivie, J., Leijon, G., & Johansson, I. (1989). Central post-stroke pain - a study of the mechanisms through analyses of the sensory abnormalities. Pain, 37, 173-185. https://doi.org/10.1016/0304-3959(89)90128-0
    1. Brassen, S., Gamer, M., & Bchel, C. (2011). Anterior cingulate activation is related to a positivity bias and emotional stability in successful aging. Biological Psychiatry, 70(2), 131-137. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2010.10.013
    1. Brassen, S., Gamer, M., Peters, J., Gluth, S., & Büchel, C. (2012). Don't look back in anger! Responsiveness to missed chances in successful and nonsuccessful aging. Science, 336(6081), 612-614. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1217516
    1. Carver, C. S. (1997). You want to measure coping but your protocol's too long: Consider the brief COPE. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 4(1), 92-100. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327558ijbm0401_6
    1. Chao, C. C., Hsieh, S. T., Chiu, M. J., Tseng, M. T., & Chang, Y. C. (2007). Effects of aging on contact heat-evoked potentials: The physiological assessment of thermal perception. Muscle and Nerve, 36(1), 30-38. https://doi.org/10.1002/mus.20815

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources