ArticleScientific reports2025
Effects of aging on experimentally induced pain perception during a distraction task.
Article in Scientific reports, 2025. 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
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
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Dermatoglyphic patterns as predictors of dental pain perception.Bioinformation · 2026Article
- Translational insights into pain mechanisms and balance impairments in aging: a cross-sectional study.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2025Article
- Effect of vibration on pain during subcutaneous heparin injection: A randomized, single-blind, placebo-controlled trial.Open medicine (Warsaw, Poland) · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
To investigate the effects of psychological (anxiety, depression, pain catastrophizing) aspects, pain sensitivity, cognitive performance and executive functions, on pain perception during a distraction task in an acute pain laboratory in young and elderly adults. Twenty-six young (age: 20.0 ± 1.6 years) and thirty-three elderly (age: 68.0 ± 3.8 years) adults completed four self-reported questionnaires (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale-HADS, Pain Anxiety Symptoms Scale-20-PASS/20, Pain Catastrophizing Scale-PCS, and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index-PSQI), pressure pain thresholds (PPTs), a battery of executive functions (working memory, cognitive flexibility, mental inhibition), and attention levels before performing two distraction tasks (1-back, 2-back). Pain was experimentally induced with a thermal stimulus applied at the non-dominant forearm to provoke moderate pain (70/100 points) before and during the distraction tasks. Age (young, elderly), psychological and psychophysical variables, and neurocognitive test performance levels (low, medium, high) were included in separate ANCOVAs to compare pain intensity at baseline and during distraction tasks. All ANOVAs revealed a main effect of distraction task, indicating that perceived pain intensity scores were lower during both distraction tasks (p < 0.001) compared to baseline. Overall, there was no significant effect of age on perceived pain intensity after distraction tasks, except for an interaction effect between the distraction task and age group depending on PPTs levels (F [2,49] = 3.7, p = 0.03). Elderly adults (with higher PPTs) reported lower perceived pain intensity during both distraction tasks compared to younger adults (lower PPTs). This study found that the hypoalgesic effect of a distraction task is not directly associated with age or neurocognitive function and attention levels in pain-free subjects, but it was related with higher PPTs (lower pressure pain hyperalgesia).
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.