TY - JOUR
T1 - Attention Bias to Pain Words Comes Early and Cognitive Load Matters
T2 - Evidence from an ERP Study on Experimental Pain
AU - Wang, Kangling
AU - Chen, Yifei
AU - Huang, Shimin
AU - Liu, Howe
AU - Wu, Wen
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank all subjects for the assistance in the EEG record. The research leading to these results has received funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NNSFC) (contract grant number 81772430) and Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province of China (contract grant number 2021A1515011042).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Kangling Wang et al.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - Attention bias (AB) is a common cognitive challenge for patients with pain. In this study, we tested at what stage AB to pain occurs in participants with experimental pain (EP) and tested whether cognitive load interferes with it. We recruited 40 healthy adults aged 18-27 years, and randomized them into control and EP groups. We sprayed the participants in the EP group with 10% capsaicin paste to mimic acute pain and those in the control group with water, accessing both groups' behavioral results and event-related potential data. We found that high-load tasks had longer response times and lower accuracies than low-load tasks did and that different neural processing of words occurred between the groups. The EP group exhibited AB to pain at an early stage with both attentional avoidance (N1 latency) and facilitated attention (P2 amplitude) to pain words. The control group coped with semantic differentiation (N1) at first, followed by pain word discrimination (P2). In addition, AB to pain occurred only in low-load tasks. As the cognitive load multiplied, we did not find AB in the EP group. Therefore, our study adds further evidence for AB to pain, suggesting the implementation of cognitive load in future AB therapy.
AB - Attention bias (AB) is a common cognitive challenge for patients with pain. In this study, we tested at what stage AB to pain occurs in participants with experimental pain (EP) and tested whether cognitive load interferes with it. We recruited 40 healthy adults aged 18-27 years, and randomized them into control and EP groups. We sprayed the participants in the EP group with 10% capsaicin paste to mimic acute pain and those in the control group with water, accessing both groups' behavioral results and event-related potential data. We found that high-load tasks had longer response times and lower accuracies than low-load tasks did and that different neural processing of words occurred between the groups. The EP group exhibited AB to pain at an early stage with both attentional avoidance (N1 latency) and facilitated attention (P2 amplitude) to pain words. The control group coped with semantic differentiation (N1) at first, followed by pain word discrimination (P2). In addition, AB to pain occurred only in low-load tasks. As the cognitive load multiplied, we did not find AB in the EP group. Therefore, our study adds further evidence for AB to pain, suggesting the implementation of cognitive load in future AB therapy.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85118937889&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1155/2021/9940889
DO - 10.1155/2021/9940889
M3 - Article
C2 - 34754306
AN - SCOPUS:85118937889
SN - 2090-5904
VL - 2021
JO - Neural Plasticity
JF - Neural Plasticity
M1 - 9940889
ER -