ArticlePain reports2021
Impact of pain on mental effort assessed as cardiovascular reactivity.
Article in Pain reports, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
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
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Effort and its perception revisited: How physical-domain insights could lead toward a unified theory.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2026Review
- Affective Influences on the Intensity of Mental Effort: 25 Years of Programmatic Research.Emotion review : journal of the International Society for Research on Emotion · 2025Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionPain typically impairs task performance, increases fatigue, and is associated with behavioral disengagement. Together, this suggests that pain impacts effort, defined as the mobilization of resources to carry out behavior. However, empirical evidence on this issue is lacking.
objectivesDrawing on motivational intensity theory, this study investigated the impact of pain on effort mobilization during cognitive task performance.
methodsWe administered individually adjusted painful thermal stimulations during an easy memory task during which we measured effort as cardiovascular reactivity-a valid and objective measure. Control conditions included painful stimulations alone, the memory task alone, and the memory task with nonpainful heat stimulations. We expected pain to increase subjective difficulty due to additional demand on cognitive functioning, and in turn effort according to motivational intensity theory. Effort-related cardiovascular reactivity was predicted to increase along these conditions: pain-alone, task-alone, task with nonpainful stimulations, and the strongest effort when painful stimulations were administered during the task.
resultsOverall, the findings offered support to our hypotheses. As predicted, results showed that pain increased subjective task difficulty (
conclusionThese results are first evidence that pain impacts mental effort assessed as cardiovascular reactivity. We discuss how such extra effort might be related to the persistent feeling of fatigue and behavioral disengagement frequently observed in patients with chronic 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.