Bogus Visual Feedback Alters Onset of Movement-Evoked Pain in People With Neck Pain. (April 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Harvie, Daniel S.; Broecker, Markus; Smith, Ross T.; Meulders, Ann; Madden, Victoria J.; Moseley, G. Lorimer
• Is Part Of: Psychological science. Volume 26:Number 4(2015:Apr.)
• Page Start: 385
• Page End: 392
• Publication Date: 2015-04
• Subjects: pain -- perception -- virtual reality -- redirected walking -- illusions -- body representation -- movement -- multisensory processing -- open data; Psychology -- Periodicals; 150.5
• DOI: 10.1177/0956797614563339
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0956-7976

Abstract

Pain is a protective perceptual response shaped by contextual, psychological, and sensory inputs that suggest danger to the body. Sensory cues suggesting that a body part is moving toward a painful position may credibly signal the threat and thereby modulate pain. In this experiment, we used virtual reality to investigate whether manipulating visual proprioceptive cues could alter movement-evoked pain in 24 people with neck pain. We hypothesized that pain would occur at a lesser degree of head rotation when visual feedback overstated true rotation and at a greater degree of rotation when visual feedback understated true rotation. Our hypothesis was clearly supported: When vision overstated the amount of rotation, pain occurred at 7% less rotation than under conditions of accurate visual feedback, and when vision understated rotation, pain occurred at 6% greater rotation than under conditions of accurate visual feedback. We concluded that visual-proprioceptive information modulated the threshold for movement-evoked pain, which suggests that stimuli that become associated with pain can themselves trigger pain.