Effects of Executive Functions and Cognitive Variables in Experimentally Induced Acute Pain Perception during a Distraction Task: A Study on Asymptomatic Pain-Free Individuals.
Angela Tejera-Alonso, Francisco G Fernández-Palacios, Juan C Pacho-Hernández, Arvin Naeimi, Ana I de-la-Llave-Rincón, Silvia Ambite-Quesada, Ricardo Ortega-Santiago, César Fernández-de-Las-Peñas, Margarita Cigarán-Mendez
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of executive functioning and cognitive performance on individual experimentally induced pain perception during distractor tasks in an asymptomatic pain-free population. A total of 59 healthy pain-free subjects (59.3% women, mean age: 46.5 ± 24.7 years) completed a battery test that assessed execution functions (cognitive flexibility, working memory, mental inhibition), attention level, and psychological aspects (anxiety/depressive levels-HADS, pain catastrophizing-PCS, pain anxiety symptoms-PASS 20, sleep quality-PSQI) before conducting two n-back distraction tasks. Pain was experimentally induced with a thermal stimulus that was able to induce moderate pain (70/100 points) and applied to the non-dominant forearm. The thermal stimulus was applied before and during both (one-back and two-back) distraction tasks. The analyses consisted of separated repeated-measures ANOVA that considered the functioning on each test (cognitive flexibility, working memory, mental inhibition, selective attention) and controlled for sociodemographic and psychological aspects by comparing the pain intensity at the baseline and during the one-back and two-back distractor tasks. All ANOVAs found a significant effect of the distraction task, which indicates that the perceived pain intensity scores were lower during the one-back and two-back tasks (p < 0.001) as compared with the baseline. No interaction effect between the distractor tasks and working memory (p = 0.546), mental inhibition (p = 0.16), cognitive flexibility (p = 0.069), or selective attention (p = 0.105) was identified. The current study found that a distraction task decreased the perceived intensity of experimentally induced pain in asymptomatic pain-free individuals and that this effect was not related to executive function or attention levels.
Life-BaselBiochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology-General Biochemistry,Genetics and Molecular Biology
CiteScore
4.30
自引率
6.20%
发文量
1798
审稿时长
11 weeks
期刊介绍:
Life (ISSN 2075-1729) is an international, peer-reviewed open access journal of scientific studies related to fundamental themes in Life Sciences, especially those concerned with the origins of life and evolution of biosystems. Our aim is to encourage scientists to publish their experimental and theoretical results in as much detail as possible. There is no restriction on the length of the papers.