ArticleeLife2024
Statistical learning shapes pain perception and prediction independently of external cues.
Article in eLife, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 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.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed.
- Placebo and nocebo effects on pain through the lens of the predictive brain: Neurobiological mechanisms and translational implications.Experimental physiology · 2026Review
- Temporal predictions shape somatosensory perception.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Dynamic expectation strength and precision shape human pain perception through shared and dissociable α-oscillatory mechanisms.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Healing vs. hurting words: the power of language in pain perception-a narrative review.Frontiers in pain research (Lausanne, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Bayesian attenuation of offset analgesia filters out random disturbances in noxious stimuli.Pain reports · 2025Article
- Impaired Adaptive Learning in Chronic Pain Contributes to Apathy.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- Neural variability reliably encodes interindividual differences in the perception of pain intensity.PLoS biology · 2025Article
- Expectation generation and its effect on subsequent pain and visual perception.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- Short-term variability of chronic musculoskeletal pain.Frontiers in pain research (Lausanne, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- A computational mechanism of cue-stimulus integration for pain in the brain.Science advances · 2024Article
- Statistical learning shapes pain perception and prediction independently of external cues.eLife · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The placebo and nocebo effects highlight the importance of expectations in modulating pain perception, but in everyday life we don't need an external source of information to form expectations about pain. The brain can learn to predict pain in a more fundamental way, simply by experiencing fluctuating, non-random streams of noxious inputs, and extracting their temporal regularities. This process is called statistical learning. Here, we address a key open question: does statistical learning modulate pain perception? We asked 27 participants to both rate and predict pain intensity levels in sequences of fluctuating heat pain. Using a computational approach, we show that probabilistic expectations and confidence were used to weigh pain perception and prediction. As such, this study goes beyond well-established conditioning paradigms associating non-pain cues with pain outcomes, and shows that statistical learning itself shapes pain experience. This finding opens a new path of research into the brain mechanisms of pain regulation, with relevance to chronic pain where it may be dysfunctional.
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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.