Abstract
Compared to the field of anxiety research, the use of fear conditioning paradigms for studying chronic pain is relatively novel. Developments in identifying the neural correlates of pain-related fear are important for understanding the mechanisms underlying chronic pain and warrant synthesis to establish the state-of-the-art. Using effect-size signed differential mapping, this meta-analysis combined nine MRI studies and compared the overlap in these correlates of pain-related fear to those of other non-pain-related conditioned fears (55 studies). Pain-related fear was characterized by neural activation of the supramarginal gyrus, middle temporal gyrus, inferior/middle frontal gyri, frontal operculum and insula, pre-/post-central gyri, medial frontal and (para-)cingulate cortex, hippocampus, thalamus, and putamen. There were differences with other non-pain-related conditioned fears, specifically in the inferior frontal gyrus, medial superior frontal gyrus, post-central gyrus, middle temporal gyrus, parieto-occipital sulcus, and striatum. We conclude that pain-related and non-pain-related conditioned fears recruit overlapping but distinguishable networks, with potential implications for understanding the mechanisms underlying different psychopathologies.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 52-65 |
Number of pages | 14 |
Journal | Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews |
Volume | 119 |
Early online date | 1 Oct 2020 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Dec 2020 |
Keywords
- Pain
- Fear
- Conditioning
- Meta-analysis
- Magnetic resonance imaging
- Chronic pain
- PRIMARY SOMATOSENSORY CORTEX
- VENTROMEDIAL PREFRONTAL CORTEX
- MOVEMENT-RELATED PAIN
- INDIVIDUAL-DIFFERENCES
- MUSCULOSKELETAL PAIN
- AMYGDALA ACTIVATION
- COGNITIVE CONTROL
- ANXIETY DISORDER
- AVOIDANCE MODEL
- VISCERAL PAIN