Intrinsic attention to pain is associated with a pronociceptive phenotype

Capacity for modulation of incoming nociceptive signals is a determinant of our tendency to attend to pain.
Introduction: Evidence suggests that attention to pain is a product of both incoming sensory signals and cognitive evaluation of a stimulus. Intrinsic attention to pain (IAP) is a measure that captures an individual's natural tendency to attend to a painful stimulus and may be important in understanding why pain disrupts cognitive functioning in some individuals more than others. Objective: In this study, we explored the extent to which IAP was associated with the modulation of incoming sensory signals characteristic of a pronociceptive phenotype: temporal summation (TS) and conditioned pain modulation (CPM). Method: 44 healthy participants (23 female; Mage=23.57, S.D.=5.50) were assessed on IAP, TS and CPM. Results: We found that IAP was positively correlated with TS and CPM. A regression model showed that TS and CPM explained 39% of the variance in IAP scores. Both mechanisms seem to contribute independently to the propensity to attend to pain. Conclusion: These findings highlight that modulatory mechanisms at the spinal/supraspinal level exert a strong influence on an individual's ability to disengage from pain.