ArticleThe journal of pain2018
A Functional Neuroimaging Study of Expectancy Effects on Pain Response in Patients With Knee Osteoarthritis.
Article in The journal of pain, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 44 papers, 3 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
44 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 65 citations in OpenAlex.
- Placebo Effect of Sham Acupuncture for Primary Insomnia: A Meta-Analysis of Randomised Controlled Trials.Journal of sleep research · 2026Pooled it
- Functional brain alterations associated with acupuncture for chronic pain: a scoping review of fMRI studies.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2026Pooled it
- Coordinate-based (ALE) meta-analysis of acupuncture for musculoskeletal pain.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2022Pooled it
- GABRB3 Gene Polymorphisms Influences the Analgesic Response to Acupuncture Treatment in Patients With Chronic Knee Pain: A Randomized Controlled Neuroimaging Transcriptomics Study.FASEB journal : official publication of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology · 2026Trial
- Brain functional basis of the association between positive expectation and acupuncture efficacy in knee osteoarthritis.Brain imaging and behavior · 2026Trial
- Effects of Acupuncture-Combined Tuina on Patients With Knee Osteoarthritis: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial.JMIR research protocols · 2026Trial
- Modulation effects of different treatments on periaqueductal gray resting state functional connectivity in knee osteoarthritis knee pain patients.CNS neuroscience & therapeutics · 2023Trial
- Trial
- Influence of pain anticipation on brain activity and pain perception in Gulf War Veterans with chronic musculoskeletal pain.Psychophysiology · 2019Trial
- Analgesic Effects Evoked by Real and Imagined Acupuncture: A Neuroimaging Study.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2019Trial
- Evidence for decreased Neurologic Pain Signature activation following thoracic spinal manipulation in healthy volunteers and participants with neck pain.NeuroImage. Clinical · 2019Trial
- Article
- Review
- Placebo analgesia persistence: evaluating behavioural stability in repeated trials.Communications biology · 2026Article
- The causal role of brain circuits in osteoarthritis pain.Nature reviews. Rheumatology · 2025Review
- Brain functional imaging contributions in osteoarthritis-related pain: A viewpoint.Osteoarthritis and cartilage open · 2025Article
- Exploration of Key Brain Regions Involved in Acupuncture and Moxibustion Analgesia: An Imaging-Based Study.Journal of pain research · 2025Review
- Cerebral Mechanism of Tuina on the Descending Pain Inhibitory System in Knee Osteoarthritis: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial.JMIR research protocols · 2024Article
- Acupuncture-Related Therapy for Knee Osteoarthritis: A Narrative Review of Neuroimaging Studies.Journal of pain research · 2024Review
- Placebo effects in osteoarthritis: implications for treatment and drug development.Nature reviews. Rheumatology · 2023Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Placebo treatments and healing rituals share much in common, such as the effects of expectancy, and have been used since the beginning of human history to treat pain. Previous mechanistic neuroimaging studies investigating the effects of expectancy on placebo analgesia have used young, healthy volunteers. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we aimed to investigate the neural mechanisms by which expectancy evokes analgesia in older adults living with a chronic pain disorder and determine whether there are interactions with active treatment. In this fMRI study, we investigated the brain networks underlying expectancy in participants with chronic pain due to knee osteoarthritis (OA) after verum (genuine) and sham electroacupuncture treatment before and after experiencing calibrated experimental heat pain using a well tested expectancy manipulation model. We found that expectancy significantly and similarly modulates the pain experience in knee OA patients in both verum (n = 21, 11 female; mean ± SD age 57 ± 7 years) and sham (n = 22, 15 female; mean ± SD age 59 ± 7 years) acupuncture treatment groups. However, there were different patterns of changes in fMRI indices of brain activity associated with verum and sham treatment modalities specifically in the lateral prefrontal cortex. We also found that continuous electroacupuncture in knee OA patients can evoke significant regional coherence decreases in pain associated brain regions. Our results suggest that expectancy modulates the experience of pain in knee OA patients but may work through different pathways depending on the treatment modality and, we speculate, on pathophysiological states of the participants. PERSPECTIVE: To investigate the neural mechanisms underlying pain modulation, we used an expectancy manipulation model and fMRI to study response to heat pain stimuli before and after verum or sham acupuncture treatment in chronic pain patients. Both relieve pain and each is each associated with a distinct pattern of brain activation.
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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.