Trial reportThe Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience2014
Tonic pain experienced during locomotor training impairs retention despite normal performance during acquisition.
Trial report in The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 50 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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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
50 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 74 citations in OpenAlex.
- Motor Learning in Response to Different Experimental Pain Models Among Healthy Individuals: A Systematic Review.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2022Pooled it
- Exploring pain interference with motor skill learning in humans: A systematic review.PloS one · 2022Pooled it
- Acute pain impairs retention of locomotor learning, regardless of the context of retention testing.Journal of neurophysiology · 2025Trial
- Effect of Experimental Pain and Visual Feedback on the Accuracy and Precision of Knee Joint Position Sense.Pain research & management · 2025Trial
- Acute pain impairs retention of locomotor learning.Journal of neurophysiology · 2024Trial
- Pain Induced during Both the Acquisition and Retention Phases of Locomotor Adaptation Does Not Interfere with Improvements in Motor Performance.Neural plasticity · 2016Trial
- Acute pain impairs locomotor learning and retention in older adults.The journal of pain · 2026Article
- Understanding Motor Adaptation in the Transition to Sustained Pain: Protocol for a Longitudinal Experimental Study.JMIR research protocols · 2026Article
- Gait Retraining to Reduce Tibial Acceleration Versus a Standard Walking Program for Reducing Knee Pain and Loading in Adults With Knee Osteoarthritis: A Randomized Feasibility Trial.ACR open rheumatology · 2025Article
- Disuse plasticity limits spinal cord injury recovery.iScience · 2025Article
- Effect of Phasic Experimental Pain Applied during Motor Preparation or Execution on Motor Performance and Adaptation in a Reaching Task: A Randomized Trial.Brain sciences · 2024Article
- Updating perspectives on spinal cord function: motor coordination, timing, relational processing, and memory below the brain.Frontiers in systems neuroscience · 2024Review
- General Anesthesia Blocks Pain-Induced Hemorrhage and Locomotor Deficits After Spinal Cord Injury in Rats.Journal of neurotrauma · 2023Article
- Behavioral studies of spinal conditioning: The spinal cord is smarter than you think it is.Journal of experimental psychology. Animal learning and cognition · 2022Article
- Towards the Objective Identification of the Presence of Pain Based on Electroencephalography Signals' Analysis: A Proof-of-Concept.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- What is the nature of motor adaptation to dynamic perturbations?PLoS computational biology · 2022Article
- Does musculoskeletal pain interfere with motor learning in a gait adaptation task? A proof-of-concept study.BMC musculoskeletal disorders · 2022Article
- Exploring pain interference with motor skill learning in humans: a protocol for a systematic review.BMJ open · 2021Article
- Learning Gait Modifications for Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation: Applying Motor Learning Principles to Improve Research and Clinical Implementation.Physical therapy · 2021Article
- Gait Adaptation to a Phase-Specific Nociceptive Electrical Stimulation Applied at the Ankle: A Model to Study Musculoskeletal-Like Pain.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Many patients are in pain when they receive gait training during rehabilitation. Based on animal studies, it has been proposed that central sensitization associated to nociception (maladaptive plasticity) and plasticity related to the sensorimotor learning (adaptive plasticity) share similar neural mechanisms and compete with each other. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether experimental tonic pain influences motor learning (acquisition and next-day retention) of a new locomotor task. Thirty healthy human subjects performed a locomotor adaptation task (perturbing force field applied to the ankle during swing using a robotized orthosis) on 2 consecutive days. Learning was assessed using kinematic measures (peak and mean absolute plantarflexion errors) and electromyographic (EMG) activity. Half of the participants performed the locomotor adaptation task with pain on Day 1 (capsaicin cream around the ankle), while the task was performed pain-free for all subjects on Day 2 to assess retention. Pain had no significant effect on baseline gait parameters nor on performance during the locomotor adaptation task (for either kinematic or EMG measures) on Day 1. Despite this apparently normal motor acquisition, pain-free Day 2 performance was markedly and significantly impaired in the Pain group, indicating that pain during training had an impact on the retention of motor memories (interfering with consolidation and/or retrieval). These results suggest that the same motor rehabilitation intervention could be less effective if administered in the presence of pain.
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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.