The excessive generalization of fear affected by perceptual bias in experimental pain individuals: Evidence from an event‐related potential study

• Published in: Brain and behavior 2023-07, Vol.13 (7), p.e3050-n/a
• Main Authors: Huang, Xiaomin, Chen, Jiali, Wang, Xianglong, Zhang, Xuefei, Ma, Junqin, Liu, Sishi, Liu, Xinli, Ou, Qiling, Tan, Wenwei, Wu, Wen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Anxiety; attention; Chronic pain; Conditioning, Classical - physiology; event‐related potentials; Evoked Potentials; experimental pain; Experiments; Fear - physiology; fear generalization; Generalization, Psychological - physiology; Humans; Original; Pain; perception; Questionnaires; Threats
• ISSN: 2162-3279; 2162-3279
• DOI: 10.1002/brb3.3050

Introduction Excessiv generalization of fear contributes to the development and maintenance of pain. Prior research has demonstrated the importance of perception in fear generalization and found that individuals in painful conditions exhibited perceptual bias. However, the extent to which perceptual bias in pain affects the generalization of pain‐related fear and its underlying neural activity remains unclear. Methods Here, we tested whether perceptual bias in experimental pain individuals led to the overgeneralization of pain‐related fear by recording behavioral and neural responses. To this end, we established an experimental pain model by spraying capsaicin on the surface of the seventh cervical vertebra of the participant. A total of 23 experimental pain participants and 23 matched nonpain controls learned fear conditioning and then completed the fear generalization paradigm combined with the perceptual categorization task. Results We found that the novel and safety cues were more likely to be identified as threat cues in the experimental group, resulting in higher US expectancy ratings compared to the control group. The event‐related potential results showed that the experimental group exhibited earlier N1 latency and smaller P1 and late positive potential amplitudes than those in the control group. Conclusion Our findings suggest that the experimental pain individuals exhibited an excessive generalization of fear affected by perceptual bias and reduced their attentional allocation to pain‐related fear stimuli. The current study established an experimental pain model, using the event‐related potential to investigate the neural mechanism of fear generalization. Our results suggest that the perceptual bias in experimental pain contributes to the overgeneralization of pain‐related fear, which may lead to reduced attention to the pain‐related stimulus.