ReviewNeuroscience letters2012
The use of functional neuroimaging to evaluate psychological and other non-pharmacological treatments for clinical pain.
Review in Neuroscience letters, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
26 citing papers in PubMed, 59 citations in OpenAlex.
- Audio-visual stimulation therapy for chronic neuropathic pain: a sham-controlled randomized clinical trial.BMC neurology · 2026Trial
- Effects of transcranial direct current stimulation combined with acupuncture therapy on brain network functional connectivity in patients with knee osteoarthritis: a single-center randomized controlled trial.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation · 2025Trial
- Transcutaneous auricular vague nerve stimulation improved brain connection activity on patients of disorders of consciousness: a pilot study.Journal of traditional Chinese medicine = Chung i tsa chih ying wen pan · 2022Trial
- Optimizing Chronic Pain Treatment with Enhanced Neuroplastic Responsiveness: A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial.Nutrients · 2021Trial
- Optimizing delivery of a behavioral pain intervention in cancer patients using a sequential multiple assignment randomized trial SMART.Contemporary clinical trials · 2017Trial
- Trial
- An fMRI study exploring the overlap and differences between neural representations of physical and recalled pain.PloS one · 2012Trial
- Chronic Pain and Opioids in the Elderly: Treating the Brain, Not Just the Body.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2026Review
- Sweet taste stimulation reduced pain ratings associated with increased blood flow in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex: A pilot study using NIRS.Biophysics and physicobiology · 2026Article
- Education or sedation? A randomized clinical trial of impact on procedural pain and satisfaction during regional block placement, and the moderating effect of pain catastrophizing.Regional anesthesia and pain medicine · 2025Article
- A study based on functional near-infrared spectroscopy: Cortical responses to music interventions in patients with myofascial pain syndrome.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2023Article
- Article
- Differential Brain Perfusion Changes Following Two Mind-Body Interventions for Fibromyalgia Patients: an Arterial Spin Labelling fMRI Study.Mindfulness · 2022Article
- Aberrant Intraregional Brain Activity and Functional Connectivity in Patients With Diarrhea-Predominant Irritable Bowel Syndrome.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2021Article
- Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation for Neuropathic Pain on the Non-Motor Cortex: An Evidence Mapping of Systematic Reviews.Evidence-based complementary and alternative medicine : eCAM · 2021Review
- Intracortical Inhibition in the Affected Hemisphere in Limb Amputation.Frontiers in neurology · 2020Review
- Review
- Executive Functioning Mediates the Relationship Between Pain Coping and Quality of Life in Youth With Sickle Cell Disease.Journal of pediatric psychology · 2018Article
- Opioid-Independent and Opioid-Mediated Modes of Pain Modulation.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2018Article
- State of the Art Management of Acute Vaso-occlusive Pain in Sickle Cell Disease.Paediatric drugs · 2018Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
A large number of studies have provided evidence for the efficacy of psychological and other non-pharmacological interventions in the treatment of chronic pain. While these methods are increasingly used to treat pain, remarkably few studies focused on the exploration of their neural correlates. The aim of this article was to review the findings from neuroimaging studies that evaluated the neural response to distraction-based techniques, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), clinical hypnosis, mental imagery, physical therapy/exercise, biofeedback, and mirror therapy. To date, the results from studies that used neuroimaging to evaluate these methods have not been conclusive and the experimental methods have been suboptimal for assessing clinical pain. Still, several different psychological and non-pharmacological treatment modalities were associated with increased pain-related activations of executive cognitive brain regions, such as the ventral- and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. There was also evidence for decreased pain-related activations in afferent pain regions and limbic structures. If future studies will address the technical and methodological challenges of today's experiments, neuroimaging might have the potential of segregating the neural mechanisms of different treatment interventions and elucidate predictive and mediating factors for successful treatment outcomes. Evaluations of treatment-related brain changes (functional and structural) might also allow for sub-grouping of patients and help to develop individualized treatments.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.