ArticleScientific reports2021
Cochlear SGN neurons elevate pain thresholds in response to music.
Article in Scientific reports, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 9 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
9 citing papers in PubMed.
- Assessing the effect of Loving-Kindness Meditation on pain and social well-being using a randomized controlled trial design.PloS one · 2026Trial
- Expressing emotions through music.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2026Review
- A scoping review of music-based pain treatment mechanism research.Pain reports · 2026Review
- Cross-modal synchrony between music and visual motion modulates vection, urge to move, and comfort in VR.Virtual reality · 2026Article
- Vestibular Versus Cochlear Stimulation on the Relief of Phantom Pain After Traumatic Finger Amputation.Biomedicines · 2025Article
- Why friendship and loneliness affect our health.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2025Review
- Music as an Evolved Tool for Socio-Affective Fiction.Emotion review : journal of the International Society for Research on Emotion · 2024Article
- The origins and function of musical performance.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
- Effect of Music Therapy on Postoperative Pain Management in Patients with Oral Cancer: A Retrospective Study.Noise & healthArticle
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The C-tactile (CLTM) peripheral nervous system is involved in social bonding in primates and humans through its capacity to trigger the brain's endorphin system. Since the mammalian cochlea has an unusually high density of similar neurons (type-II spiral ganglion neurons, SGNs), we hypothesise that their function may have been exploited for social bonding by co-opting head movements in response to music and other rhythmic movements of the head in social contexts. Music provides one of many cultural behavioural mechanisms for 'virtual grooming' in that it is used to trigger the endorphin system with many people simultaneously so as to bond both dyadic relationships and large groups. Changes in pain threshold across an activity are a convenient proxy assay for endorphin uptake in the brain, and we use this, in two experiments, to show that pain thresholds are higher when nodding the head than when sitting still.
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.