ArticleFrontiers in psychology2022
Unraveling Negative Expectations and Nocebo-Related Effects in Musculoskeletal Pain.
Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT07390227 (Virtual Reality Intervention in Patients With Persistent Shoulder Pain), which is not on this map. Cited by 21 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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.
Virtual Reality Intervention in Patients With Persistent Shoulder Pain
Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Effect of scapular stabilization exercises on subacromial pain (impingement) syndrome: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.Frontiers in neurology · 2024Pooled it
- Combining various acupuncture therapies with multimodal analgesia to enhance postoperative pain management following total knee arthroplasty: a network meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.Frontiers in neurology · 2024Pooled it
- Efficacy and safety of yoga for the management of chronic low back pain: an overview of systematic reviews.Frontiers in neurology · 2023Pooled it
- It Is Time to Feel Better: How Temporal Information of Placebo Analgesia Affects Our Brain.European journal of pain (London, England) · 2025Trial
- Effect of exercise and manual therapy or kinesiotaping on sEMG and pain perception in chronic low back pain: a randomized trial.BMC musculoskeletal disorders · 2024Trial
- Placebo and nocebo effects on pain through the lens of the predictive brain: Neurobiological mechanisms and translational implications.Experimental physiology · 2026Review
- More than Rehabilitation: The Role of Contextual Factors in Pain Perception and Recovery: What the Physiotherapy Literature Reports-A Narrative Review with a Systematic Search Strategy.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Review
- From Expectation to Learning: A Mediational Model of Exposure Therapy Outcome in Anxiety Disorders.Psychotherapy and psychosomatics · 2026Article
- Comparison of Patient Expectations and Perceptions Among Physiotherapists in the Field of Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation: A Cross-Sectional, Questionnaire-Based Study.Musculoskeletal care · 2026Article
- Negative expectations and related nocebo effects in shoulder pain: a perspective for clinicians and researchers.Pain management · 2025Review
- Don't be a nocebo! Why healthcare organizations should value patients' expectations.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Would You Take an Open-Label Placebo Pill or Give One to Your Child? Findings from a Cross-Sectional Survey.Psychology research and behavior management · 2024Article
- Fire needle therapy for the treatment of cancer pain: a protocol for the systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in neurology · 2024Article
- Interdisciplinary pain program participants with high catastrophizing scores improve function utilizing enriched therapeutic encounters and integrative health techniques: a retrospective study.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- The Biology of Placebo and Nocebo Effects on Experimental and Chronic Pain: State of the Art.Journal of clinical medicine · 2023Review
- Virtual reality in the management of patients with low back and neck pain: a retrospective analysis of 82 people treated solely in the metaverse.Archives of physiotherapy · 2023Article
- Reconceptualizing Somatic Dysfunction in the Light of a Neuroaesthetic Enactive Paradigm.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Virtual reality to improve low-back pain and pelvic pain during pregnancy: a pilot RCT for a multicenter randomized controlled trial.Frontiers in medicine · 2023Article
- Are patients picking up what we are putting down? Considering nocebo effects in exercise for musculoskeletal pain.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
- Editorial: Harnessing placebo mechanisms.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
This Perspective adapts the ViolEx Model, a framework validated in several clinical conditions, to better understand the role of expectations in the recovery and/or maintenance of musculoskeletal (MSK) pain. Here, particular attention is given to the condition in which dysfunctional expectations are maintained despite no longer being supported by confirmatory evidence (i.e., belief-lifting the arm leads to permanent tendon damage; evidence-after the patient lifts the arm no tendon damage occurs). While the ViolEx Model suggests that cognitive immunization strategies are responsible for the maintenance of dysfunctional expectations, we suggest that such phenomenon can also be understood from a Bayesian Brain perspective, according to which the level of precision of the priors (i.e., expectations) is the determinant factor accounting for the extent of priors' updating (i.e., we merge the two frameworks, suggesting that highly precise prior can lead to cognitive immunization responses). Importantly, this Perspective translates the theory behind these two frameworks into clinical suggestions. Precisely, it is argued that different strategies should be implemented when treating MSK pain patients, depending on the nature of their expectations (i.e., positive or negative and the level of their precision).
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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.