Cold Pressor Pain Task Research Articles

No indications for altered EEG oscillatory activity in patients with chronic post-burn itch compared to healthy controls

A large proportion of patients with burn injuries develop chronic itch, which impacts quality of life. The underlying pathophysiological mechanisms are poorly understood. This cross-sectional pilot study investigates whether altered cortical oscillatory processes are involved in chronic post-burn itch. Continuous electroencephalography (EEG) data were recorded during rest and stimulation of non-injured skin, inducing itch (histamine and electrical) and cold-pressor task pain for 15 adults with chronic post-burn itch and 15 matched healthy controls. Quantitative metrics comprised oscillatory power and peak frequencies in theta, alpha, and beta bands. No statistical differences between patients and healthy controls were found in oscillatory activity during rest or stimulation, with Bayesian analysis suggesting equivocal evidence. However, post-traumatic stress symptoms and duration of chronic itch may be associated with changes in oscillatory activity. A lack of differences in cortical oscillatory processing and itch levels at non-injured sites, suggests that itch symptoms have a localised character in this sample of patients with post-burn itch. For future studies, a biopsychological approach with integration of peripheral and central nervous system techniques, linear and non-linear EEG analysis, injured and non-injured stimulation sites, and incorporation of individual characteristics is recommended. Insight into pathophysiological mechanisms underlying chronic post-burn itch could improve diagnostics and treatments.

An Experimental Investigation of the Effects and Mechanisms of Mindfulness Meditation Versus Self-Hypnosis Versus an Attention Control on Cold Pressor Outcomes

This research examined whether brief sessions of mindfulness meditation (MM) or self-hypnosis (HYP) produce changes in cold pressor task (CPT) outcomes and whether outcome improvement, when it occurs, is mediated by attentional processes (i.e., pain focus, mindful observing) or pain appraisals (i.e., threat, challenge). Healthy adults (N = 201) were randomly assigned to 20-min sessions of MM, HYP, or an attention Control. Participants completed assessments of potential mediators before the first CPT and after experimental intervention, but before a second CPT. HYP and MM participants reported greater reductions in CPT pain intensity than Control participants, and CPT unpleasantness was reduced in HYP compared to Control. Neither MM nor HYP resulted in significant changes in pain focus or mindful observing, and these scales were not associated with CPT outcomes. However, threat appraisals were reduced in HYP versus Control, and threat appraisal reductions were associated with increased pain tolerance. Challenge appraisal increased in both HYP versus Control and HYP versus MM, and challenge increases were associated with reductions in CPT unpleasantness. Challenge changes were a significant mediator of unpleasantness changes when HYP was compared to MM (p = .042); this mediation effect was non-significant for HYP compared to Control (p = .059). The findings indicate single sessions of HYP and MM produce changes in CPT outcomes. HYP also influenced threat and challenge appraisals, which were associated with CPT outcome changes, and challenge appraisals emerged as a potential mechanism of HYP. Further research is needed to identify mediating mechanisms for these two pain management approaches.

Brief Compassion-Focused Imagery Dampens Physiological Pain Responses

ObjectivesAffiliative processes are postulated to improve pain coping. Comparatively, compassion-focused imagery (CFI) also stimulates affiliate affect systems with a burgeoning behavioural, cognitive and physiological evidence base. Thus, the purpose of the present research was to investigate if engaging in brief CFI could improve pain coping.MethodsUtilising a randomised repeated measures crossover design, 37 participants were subjected to experimental pain (cold pressor) following counter-balanced engagement with CFI or control imagery, 1 week apart. Salivary alpha-amylase (sAA) and questionnaire measures of emotional responding were taken: at baseline, following introduction to the imagery condition (anticipation), and immediately after the cold pressor pain task (actual).ResultsParticipants exhibited increases in sAA levels in response to pain following control imagery but, no such changes were observed following CFI (i.e. there was a significant time-by-condition interaction). Pain tolerance (the length of time participants immersed their hands in the cold pressor) did not differ by imagery condition. However, sAA responses to actual pain predicted decreased pain tolerance in the CFI condition. Additionally, anticipatory sAA response predicted increased pain tolerance across both conditions. None of the emotional measures of well-being differed by imagery condition, nor by condition over time.ConclusionsThese data demonstrate that using CFI can curtail a physiological stress response to pain, as indicated by increases in sAA in the control imagery condition only, following pain; pain tolerance was not influenced by CFI. Compassion-based approaches may therefore help people cope with the stress associated with pain.

Child catastrophizing about parent chronic pain: A potential child vulnerability factor.

ObjectiveRobust evidence suggests children’s catastrophizing about their own pain is a risk factor for poor child pain‐related outcomes. In children of parents with chronic pain, child catastrophizing about their parents’ pain might be a unique predictor of child pain‐related outcomes given their increased exposure to parental chronic pain and disability. The objective of this study was to examine associations between child and parent catastrophizing about their own and each other’s pain and child and parent pain‐related outcomes.MethodsSeventy‐two parents with chronic pain and their children (ages 8–15) completed questionnaires assessing their trait catastrophizing about their own and each other’s pain, their own pain, and the child’s internalizing symptoms. Children completed the cold pressor task (CPT) in the presence of their parent. Parents and children rated children’s worst pain intensity and their own anxiety during the task. Analyses were guided by the Actor‐Partner Interdependence Model.ResultsGreater child catastrophizing about parent pain was associated with children’s and parents’ increased catastrophizing about their own pain. Child catastrophizing about parent pain was associated with greater child‐ and parent‐reported child internalizing symptoms and greater CPT pain intensity for the child, but not parent/child usual pain or CPT anxiety, over and above the influence of parent and child catastrophizing about their own pain.ConclusionsChild catastrophizing about parent pain is a potential vulnerability factor associated with poor pain‐related outcomes in children of parents with chronic pain that should be considered in future research and clinical settings. Statement of contribution What is already known on this subject? Higher rates of pain and internalizing symptoms are observed in offspring of parents with vs. without chronic pain.Greater child and parent pain catastrophizing are associated with poorer pain‐related outcomes in children.Child catastrophizing about parent chronic pain and its association with child outcomes has not been examined. What does this study add? Greater child catastrophizing about parent chronic pain is associated with greater child internalizing and CPT pain.These effects were seen beyond the association of child and parent catastrophizing about their own pain.

I'm tired and it hurts! Sleep quality and acute pain response in a chronic pain population

Objective/BackgroundThere are bidirectional links between sleep quality and pain, with recent research suggesting that sleep impairment more strongly predicts future pain than vice versa. Relatively few studies have examined the relationship between sleep quality and acute pain among chronic pain patients. The purpose of the current study is to investigate relationships among subjective sleep quality and behavioral and physiological responses to a cold pressor pain task (CPT) in chronic pain patients. Patients/methodsIn sum, 120 individuals with chronic pain were included. Participants completed a series of questionnaires followed by the CPT. Sleep quality was assessed using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). Physiological baseline state and stress response were assessed before and during the CPT using heart rate (HR), electromyography frontalis (EMGF), galvanic skin response conductance (GSR), and skin temperature (°C). Multiple linear regressions adjusting for opioid usage were performed. ResultsAfter adjusting for opioid use, PSQI global score explained significant variance in pain tolerance (B = −5.37, β = −0.23, p = 0.01), baseline GSR (B = −0.66, β = −0.24, p = 0.01), and HR change from baseline to CPT (B = 1.33, β = 0.25, p = 0.01). ConclusionsWorse perceived sleep quality was associated with lower pain tolerance, lower baseline GSR conductance, and greater HR change from baseline to CPT. These findings underscore the importance of accounting for opioid usage and psychological dimensions of pain in the relationship between sleep and acute pain response in chronic pain populations.

The analgesic effect of music on cold pressor pain responses: The influence of anxiety and attitude toward pain.

ObjectiveThe analgesic effect of music has been recognized for pain relief, but individual differences and adjuvant methods are poorly understood. This study employed a cold-pressor task (CPT) to observe the effects of music (without considering personal preferences) on pain experience and how this is affected by individuals’ general (and pain-specific) anxiety symptomology.MethodsFifty participants were each presented with three conditions (randomized into different orders): music-listening, news-listening, and no sound (control). Pain responses, including pain tolerance time (PT), pain intensity (PI), and pain unpleasantness (PU), were assessed using CPT and compared with a 3x3 crossover design. Participants also completed the anxiety sensitivity index (ASI-16) and pain anxiety symptom scale (PASS-20).ResultsCPT pain responses during the music intervention were significantly different from responses during the news intervention and control conditions, respectively. Among participants with normal anxiety levels, pain responses during the music condition differed significantly from the news and control groups; this was not the case for the anxiety risk group. Pain responses during the music condition for those with normal levels of pain-specific anxiety differed significantly from the control, but this was not the case for the risk group.ConclusionsMusic appears to influence diminished pain responses relative to the absence of an intervention. However, this was not the case when individuals listened to news stories. These effects were more robust for individuals experiencing normal levels of general and pain-specific anxiety. Thus, music (even outside one’s own preferences) was an effective adjuvant method for managing pain, especially among those without significant anxiety symptomology.

The Confounding Effect of Assessor Ethnicity on Subjective Pain Reporting in Women

The current study examines how subjective pain reporting is influenced by the concordant and discordant nature of the ethnic identities of pain expressers (participants) and pain assessors (experimenters). Three discomfort conditions that varied in stimuli intensity (Study 1: mild pain; Study 2: severe pain), and distraction components (Study 3) were used to assess whether pain intensity and tolerance reporting differ with the ethnic identification of the participant and the experimenter. Specifically, 87 Hispanic and 74 Non-Hispanic White (NHW) women (18–51 yrs., Mage = 20.0, SD = 4.3) underwent a cold pressor pain task (CPT) after engaging in minimal procedural interactions with one of the 22 research experimenters (47% Hispanic, 42% females). The procedural interactions with the experimenters included only consenting and instructions, with no interaction between experimenter and participant during the actual CPT. Random-effects models showed that between the 0% and 18% of the variance in pain sensitivity (intensity and tolerance scores) was attributable to characteristics of the experimenters. Controlling for self-esteem, baseline pain levels, and the gender of the experimenter, Hispanic subjects showed higher pain sensitivity (as marked by lower pain tolerance and higher pain intensity scores) following interactions with an NHW rather than a Hispanic experimenter in response to the most severe pain intensity stimuli. These results question the validity of common findings of ethnic differences in pain sensitivity from studies that have not accounted for the ethnic identity of the pain assessor (and the general communicative nature of pain reporting).

The Development and Psychometric Validation of an Arabic-Language Version of the Pain Catastrophizing Scale.

Context. The Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS) is the most widely used measure of pain-specific catastrophizing. Objectives. The purpose of the present study was to develop and psychometrically evaluate an Arabic-language version of the PCS. Methods. In Study 1, 150 adult chronic nonmalignant pain patients seeking treatment at a hospital setting completed the PCS-A and a number of self-report measures assessing clinical parameters of pain, symptoms of depression, and quality of life. Study 2 employed a cold pressor pain task to examine the PCS-A in a sample of 44 healthy university students. Results. Exploratory factor analyses suggested a two-factor structure. Confirmatory factor analysis comparing the 2-factor model, Sullivan's original 3-factor model, and a 1-factor model based on the total score all provided adequate fit to the data. Cronbach's alpha coefficients across all models met or exceeded accepted standards of reliability. Catastrophizing was associated with higher levels of depression and increased pain intensity and interference. Catastrophizing predicted decreased quality of life, even after controlling for the contribution of gender, employment, depression, and pain interference. PCS-A scores were positively correlated with heightened experimental pain severity and decreased pain tolerance. Conclusion. The present results provide strong support for the psychometric properties of the PCS-A.

Keep in touch: The effects of imagined touch support on stress and exploration

Although social support buffers stress and helps individuals to embrace challenges (exploration), individuals often experience stressors when close others are not proximally available to provide support. The current research tested whether imagining supportive touch from a romantic partner promotes exploration and buffers stress better than imagining verbal support or control imagination tasks. Participants completed a 5-min imagined support manipulation prior to experiencing a physical stressor, the cold pressor pain task (Exp. 1) or social/performance stressors, the Trier Social Stress task (Exp. 2). In Experiment 1, participants who imagined touch support experienced pain-buffering benefits compared to participants who imagined verbal support, and women who imagined touch support were more likely than women in other conditions to accept the challenge of a more difficult cold pressor task. In Experiment 2, participants who imagined touch support were more buffered from the stress of the socially-evaluative tasks and viewed these tasks with more enthusiasm than participants in all other imagination conditions. Potential mechanisms and implications are discussed.

The pain paradox: borderline personality disorder features, self-harm history, and the experience of pain.

Individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD), compared to controls, report a relative absence of acute pain. In contrast, BPD is overrepresented among chronic pain patients, suggesting they experience a relative excess of chronic pain. To date, this "pain paradox" has been only partially explored; no study has examined both acute and chronic pain in the same sample. In addition, previous research has not fully examined the effect of nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) on either acute or chronic pain experience in BPD. Undergraduates (N = 206), oversampled for those high in BPD features, completed a Cold Pressor Task (CPT), rating their pain every 15 s over a maximum of 4 min. Following the CPT, participants completed measures of BPD features, NSSI history, past-year pain, and perceived pain tolerance. Results did not support the expected negative association between BPD features and acute pain. Multilevel modeling revealed an interaction of BPD features and NSSI history on CPT pain ratings: Among individuals in the no-NSSI group, BPD features were associated with greater acute pain. Among individuals in the NSSI group, BPD features were not significantly associated with acute pain. Results for past-year pain indicated that BPD features were associated with greater past-year pain regardless of NSSI history. This finding, coupled with the difference in the association of BPD features and acute pain between the NSSI and no-NSSI groups provides tentative evidence that the combination of BPD features and NSSI history, among nonclinical samples, is linked to a pain paradox.

Old and in pain: Enduring and situational effects of cultural aging stereotypes on older people's pain experiences.

This study aimed to investigate the interplay between enduring and situational aging stereotype (AS) effects in older adults' self-reports of clinical and experimentally induced pain. We expected that, as compared with the situational activation of positive AS or a neutral condition, the activation of negative AS would lead to more severe self-reports of clinical pain (H1, hypothesis 1), higher cold pressor task (CPT) pain threshold (H2) and lower CPT pain tolerance (H3), especially among older adults who more strongly endorsed AS. This was a prospective study across two moments in time. At time 1 (T1), 52 older adults (Mage = 74.7; 51.9% women) filled out measures of cultural AS endorsement, clinical pain severity and interference. Three months afterwards (T2), some of these participants collaborated in an experimental study on the effects of AS activation on reported clinical pain (n = 40) and experimentally induced (using CPT) pain threshold and tolerance (n = 35). Our results supported H2, i.e., as compared with the activation of positive AS or a neutral condition, when negative AS were activated older adults showed higher CPT pain thresholds, but this effect was more salient among those who more strongly endorsed AS at T1. This study stresses the influence of cultural AS in older adults' pain experiences showing that the situational activation of negative AS greatly increases experimentally induced pain thresholds of elders who more strongly endorse those stereotypes. It also highlights the relevance of interventions at the level of the physical and/or social environments surrounding elders in pain.

Relevance of Water Temperature, Apparatus, and Age to Children's Pain during the Cold Pressor Task.

Effective use of experimental pain in research depends on a thorough understanding of factors influencing their use. Although studies using the cold pressor task (CPT) have critically advanced our knowledge of pain mechanisms, assessment, and management in adults and children, the impact of identified methodological variability in its use is not known (ie, water temperature and apparatus); furthermore, whether methodological variations differentially impact children across development. Pain outcomes were examined in 113 healthy children from three age groups (8- to 9-, 10- to 11-, and 12- to 14-year-olds) who completed three CPTs at different water temperatures (5, 7, 10°C) in counterbalanced order. Children were randomly assigned to one of two apparatus (ice- vs. electric-cooled) for all CPTs. Children's hand was warmed to its baseline temperature between CPTs. Colder water (2 to 3°C decreases) was associated with significantly higher pain intensity and unpleasantness, and lower pain tolerance and threshold. Older children (12 to 14 years) reported significantly worse pain intensity and unpleasantness as compared to 8- to 9-year-olds, likely due to longer pain tolerance. Pain outcomes in 10- to 11-year-olds fell between the other age groups, with significant differences for pain unpleasantness and pain tolerance (at 10°C). Higher pain-related fear and pain unpleasantness occurred with the electric-cooled apparatus. Girls had higher pain tolerance and threshold at all temperatures. These results provide critically important information about water temperature, apparatus, and child age on CPT pain responding. It informs design of future CPT studies and directs consideration of methodological variability and child age when interpreting study findings.

Exposure to virtual social stimuli modulates subjective pain reports.

Contextual factors, including the gender of researchers, influence experimental and patient pain reports. It is currently not known how social stimuli influence pain percepts, nor which types of sensory modalities of communication, such as auditory, visual or olfactory cues associated with person perception and gender processing, produce these effects. To determine whether exposure to two forms of social stimuli (audio and visual) from a virtual male or female stranger modulates cold pressor task (CPT) pain reports. Participants with similar demographic characteristics conducted a CPT in solitude, without the physical presence of an experimenter or another person. During the CPT, participants were exposed to the voice and image of a virtual male or female stranger. The voices had analogous vocal prosody, provided no semantic information (spoken in a foreign language) and differed only in pitch; the images depicted a middle-age male or female health care practitioner. Male participants, but not females, showed higher CPT pain intensity when they were exposed to the female stimuli compared with the male stimuli. Follow-up analyses showed that the association between the social stimuli and variability in pain sensitivity was not moderated by individual differences in subjective (eg, self-image) or objective measurements of one's physical stature. The findings show that exposure to virtual, gender-based auditory and visual social stimuli influences exogenous pain sensitivity. Further research on how contextual factors, such as the vocal properties of health care examiners and exposure to background voices, may influence momentary pain perception is necessary for creating more standardized methods for measuring patient pain reports in clinical settings.

Sex Differences in How Social Networks and Relationship Quality Influence Experimental Pain Sensitivity

This is the first study to examine how both structural and functional components of individuals’ social networks may moderate the association between biological sex and experimental pain sensitivity. One hundred and fifty-two healthy adults (mean age = 22yrs., 53% males) were measured for cold pressor task (CPT) pain sensitivity (i.e., intensity ratings) and core aspects of social networks (e.g., proportion of friends vs. family, affection, affirmation, and aid). Results showed consistent sex differences in how social network structures and intimate relationship functioning modulated pain sensitivity. Females showed higher pain sensitivity when their social networks consisted of a higher proportion of intimate types of relationship partners (e.g., kin vs. non kin), when they had known their network partners for a longer period of time, and when they reported higher levels of logistical support from their significant other (e.g., romantic partner). Conversely, males showed distinct patterns in the opposite direction, including an association between higher levels of logistical support from one’s significant other and lower CPT pain intensity. These findings show for the first time that the direction of sex differences in exogenous pain sensitivity is likely dependent on fundamental components of the individual’s social environment. The utility of a social-signaling perspective of pain behaviors for examining, comparing, and interpreting individual and group differences in experimental and clinical pain reports is discussed.

Social modulation of facial pain display in high-catastrophizing children: An observational study in schoolchildren and their parents

The present study examined existing communal and operant accounts of children’s pain behavior by looking at the impact of parental presence and parental attention upon children’s pain expression as a function of child pain catastrophizing. Participants were 38 school children and 1 of their parents. Children completed a cold pressor pain task (CPT) twice, first when told that no one was observing (alone condition) and subsequently when told that they were being observed by their parent (parent-present condition). A 3-minute parent–child interaction occurred between the 2 CPT immersions, allowing measurement of parental attention to their child’s pain (ie, parental pain-attending talk vs non-pain-attending talk). Findings showed that child pain catastrophizing moderated the impact of parental presence upon facial displays of pain. Specifically, low-catastrophizing children expressed more pain in the presence of their parent, whereas high-catastrophizing children showed equally pronounced pain expression when alone or in the presence of a parent. Furthermore, children’s catastrophizing moderated the impact of parental attention upon facial displays and self-reports of pain; higher levels of parental nonpain talk were associated with increased facial expression and self-reports of pain among high-catastrophizing children; for low-catastrophizing children, facial and self-report of pain was independent of parental attention to pain. The findings are discussed in terms of possible mechanisms that may drive and maintain pain expression in high-catastrophizing children, as well as potential limitations of traditional theories in explaining pediatric pain expression.The impact of parental presence and parental attention to the child’s pain upon the child’s pain expression is moderated by the child’s catastrophizing about pain.

Patients with Chronic Pain After Abdominal Surgery Show Less Preoperative Endogenous Pain Inhibition and More Postoperative Hyperalgesia: A Pilot Study

ABSTRACTChronic pain is common and undesirable after surgery. Progression from acute to chronic pain involves altered pain processing. The authors studied relationships between presence of chronic pain versus preoperative descending pain control (diffuse noxious inhibitory controls; DNICs) and postoperative persistence and spread of skin and deep tissue hyperalgesia (change in electric/pressure pain tolerance thresholds; ePTT/pPTT) up to 6 months postoperatively. In 20 patients undergoing elective major abdominal surgery under standardized anesthesia, we determined ePTT/pPTT (close to [abdomen] and distant from [leg] incision), eDNIC/pDNIC (change in ePTT/pPTT with cold pressor pain task; only preoperatively), and a 100 mm long pain visual analogue scale (VAS) (0 mm = no pain, 100 mm = worst pain imaginable), both at rest and on movement preoperatively, and 1 day and 1, 3, and 6 months postoperatively. Patients reporting chronic pain 6 months postoperatively had more abdominal and leg skin hyperalgesia over the postoperative period. More inhibitory preoperative eDNIC was associated with less late postoperative pain, without affecting skin hyperalgesia. More inhibitory pDNIC was linked to less postoperative leg deep tissue hyperalgesia, without affecting pain VAS. This pilot study for the first time links chronic pain after surgery, poorer preoperative inhibitory pain modulation (DNIC), and greater postoperative degree, persistence, and spread of hyperalgesia. If confirmed, these results support the potential clinical utility of perioperative pain processing testing.

Anger Suppression Predicts Pain, Emotional, and Cardiovascular Responses to the Cold Pressor

Manipulated anger suppression has been shown to heighten pain and anger responses to pain. We examined whether individual differences in self-reported anger suppression predicted pain, anger, and blood pressure responses to acute pain. Healthy participants (N = 47) underwent an anger-provoking speech task followed by a cold pressor pain task. Participants reported their degree of suppression of thoughts and feelings related to the speech. Pain intensity ratings were obtained throughout the cold pressor. Self-reported anger, anxiety and positive emotion, as well as ratings of sensory, general distress, and anger-specific elements of pain were obtained following the cold pressor. Systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), and heart rate (HR) were recorded throughout. Self-reported suppression predicted greater pain intensity ratings, perception of sensory and anger-specific elements of pain, and self-reported anger in response to the cold pressor. Associations between self-reported suppression and pain intensity and ratings of anger-specific elements of pain were statistically mediated by pain-induced changes in self-reported anger, whereas the effect of suppression on sensory pain ratings was not. Self-reported suppression was also correlated inversely with SBP responses to the cold pressor. Consistent with an ironic process model and prior studies involving experimental manipulation of suppression, self-reported suppression of anger predicted greater pain intensity and perception of the anger-specific element of pain. Findings also suggest that suppression might attenuate homeostatic pressor responses to acute pain.

Sex Differences in Parent and Child Pain Ratings during an Experimental Child Pain Task

Research in the field of pediatric pain has largely ignored the role of fathers in their children's pain experiences. The first objective of the present study was to examine the effect of the presence of mothers versus fathers on children's subjective ratings, facial expressions and physiological responses to acute pain. The second objective was to examine whether child and parent sex influence parents' proxy ratings of their children's pain. The final objective was to compare levels of agreement between mothers' and fathers' assessments of their children's pain. Participants included 73 children (37 boys, 36 girls), four to 12 years of age, along with 32 fathers and 41 mothers. Children undertook the cold pressor pain task while observed by one of their parents. During the task, the children's heart rates and facial expressions were recorded. Children provided self-reports and parents provided proxy reports of child pain intensity using the seven-point Faces Pain Scale. Neither child nor parent sex had a significant impact on children's subjective reports, facial expressions or heart rates in response to acute pain. Fathers gave their sons higher pain ratings than their daughters, whereas mothers' ratings of their sons' and daughters' pain did not differ. Kappa statistics and t tests revealed that fathers tended to be more accurate judges of their children's pain than mothers. Overall, this research highlights the importance of examining both parent and child sex differences in pediatric pain research.

Assessing the Relationship Between Cold Pressor Pain Responses and Dimensions of the Anxiety Sensitivity Profile in Healthy Men and Women

Anxiety sensitivity (AS) has been shown previously to be an important factor in the perception and experience of experimentally induced pain within healthy adults. The aim of the current study was to extend this research by: (i) using the Anxiety Sensitivity Profile (ASP) as an alternative measure of AS; (ii) examining whether different coping instructions affect pain reports; and (iii) investigating potential differences between men and women. Participants were 50 healthy adults (23 males, 27 females) who were required to complete 2 versions of the cold pressor pain task; one version required the use of control instructions, whereas the other made use of acceptance‐based instructions. Although the coping instructions were found to affect pain thresholds (acceptance resulted in lower thresholds), a similar pattern of correlations were found between the pain indexes and AS under both conditions. Of the ASP subscales, the gastrointestinal and cognitive concerns components were found to be the most strongly related to pain experiences. When the analysis was conducted separately for each sex, the ASP scales were related to the self‐report measures of pain in women, whereas they were related to the behavioural measures of pain in men. These results not only confirm that AS is associated with experimental pain, but that there may be sex differences in this relationship.

The effects of experimenter status and cardiovascular reactivity on pain reports

Existing evidence suggests that experimenter characteristics can influence research participants’ pain reports. To examine the possibility that cardiovascular reactivity may serve as a potential mediating mechanism, blood pressure responses to stress were recorded in 117 healthy women during an arithmetic task and a subsequent cold pressor pain task. Laboratory sessions were conducted by two experimenters (i.e., a university professor and a graduate research assistant), who differed significantly on participant ratings of perceived social status. Participants tested by the university professor showed greater blood pressure responsivity to arithmetic and had higher pain tolerance and lower pain unpleasantness ratings compared to those tested by the research assistant. Further, hierarchical regression analyses indicated that blood pressure reactivity was a potential mediator of the association between experimenter status and both pain tolerance and unpleasantness, suggesting that perceived experimenter status may elicit physiological adaptations that can reduce sensitivity to painful laboratory stimuli.