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Course of Study for which scanned: Introduction to Psychology 2
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ISBN (of book) or ISSN (of journal): 9780495601500
Publication Title (Books or journal): Sensation and Perception
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Article/Chapter Title: 14: The Cutaneous Senses
Page numbers: 343-349
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called the pain matrix (Melzack, 1999;Tracey,2005; Wager

et al., 2004).
Although pain is associatedwith the overall pattern of
firing in the pain matrix, there is also evidencethat certain
areasin the matrix are responsiblefor specific components
of the pain experience.

Figure 14.25 I Brain activation for individual subjects

in Derbyshire et al.'s (2004) experiment. (a) Activation by
physically induced pain. (b) Activation for the subject who
experienced the highest level of hypnotically induced pain.
(c) Activation for the subject who experienced the lowest level
of hypnotically induced pain. (Reprinted from Neuroimage,
23, S. W. G. Derbyshire, M. G. Whalley, ~ A. Stenger, & D. A.
Oakley, "Cerebral Activation During Hypnotically Induced
and Imagined Pain," page 10, 2004, with permission from
Elsevier.)

pain. They include subcortical structures, such as the hypothalamus the amygdala, and the thalamus, and areasin
the cortex, including the somatosensorycortex, the insula
(an area deep in the cortex between the parietal and temporal regions), the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC),and the
prefrontal cortex (Chapman, 1995; Derbyshire et al., 1997;
Price, 2000; Rainville, 2002). All of the brain regions that
are involved in pain perception, taken together, have been

Representation
of the Sensory
and Affective
Components
of Pain
The definition of
pain on page343 states that pain is "an unpleasant sensory
and emotional experience."This referenceto both sensory
and emotional experiencereflects the multimodal nature
of pain, which is illustrated by how people describe pain.
When people describe their pain with words like throbbing,
prickly)hot,or dull, they are referring to the sensory component of pain. When they use words like torturing, annoying,
frightful, or sickening,they are referring to the affective (or
emotional) component of pain (Melzack, 1999).
Evidencethat thesetwo components of pain are served
by different areasof the brain is provided by an experimentby
R. K. Hofbauer and coworkers(2001),in which participants
were presented with potentially painful stimuli and were
asked to rate (1) subjective pain intensity (the sensorycomponent of pain) and (2) the unpleasantnessof the pain (the
affective component of pain). Hofbauer and coworkersmeasured brain activity using PET,as participants respondedto
pain induced by immersing their hands in hot water.
What makes this experiment particularly interesting
is that Hofbauer and coworkers not only asked their participants to rate both the sensoryand affective components
of their pain, but they also used hypnotic suggestionto decreaseor increaseeach of these components. Figure 14.27a
shows that presenting suggestions to decreaseor increase
subjective
intensitychanged the participants' ratings of both
subjective intensity (left pair of bars) and unpleasantness
(right pair of bars). These changes were accompanied by
changesin activity in 51, the primary somatosensoryreceivmg area.
Figure 14.27b shows that presenting suggestions to
decreaseor increase the unpleasantness
of the pain did not

Figure 14.26 I The perception of pain is

accompanied by activation of a number of
different areas of the brain. All of these areas,
taken together, are called the pain matrix.

Pain

347

.
.

Suggestion:

.
.

Decrease intensity
Increase intensity

Suggestion:

Decrease unpleasantness
Increase unpleasantness

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Ratings
(a) Hypnotic suggestion: change
intensity of pain

Ratings
(b) Hypnotic suggestion: change
unpleasantness of pain

affect ratings of subjective intensity (left bars), but did affect ratings of unpleasantness (right bars). These changes
were accompanied by changes in activity in the anterior
cingulate cortex (ACC), but not in S1. From these results
Hofbauer concluded the ACC is important for determining
unpleasantnessand that unpleasantnesscan change even
when the intensity of pain remains the same. Many other
experiments have confirmed the importance of the ACC in
determining the affective component of pain, and also that
different structures in the brain serve different aspects of
pain perception (Rainville, 2002).
Chemicals
in the Brain
Another important development in our understanding of the relationship between
brain activity and pain perception is the discovery of a link
betweenchemicalscalled opioids and pain perception. This
can be traced back to researchthat began in the 1970son
opiate drugs, such as opium and heroin, which have been
used since the dawn of recorded history to reduce pain and
induce feelings of euphoria.
By the 1970s,researchershad discoveredthat the opiate
drugs act on receptorsin the brain that respond to stimulation by molecules with specific structures. The importance
of the molecule's structure for exciting these "opiate receptors" explains why injecting a drug called naloxone into a
person who has overdosedon heroin can almost immediately revivethe victim. Becausenaloxone'sstructure is similar to heroin's, it blocks the action of heroin by attaching
itself to receptor sites usually occupied by heroin (Figure
14.28a).
Why are there opiate receptor sites in the brain? After
all, they certainly have been present since long before people started taking heroin. Researchersconcluded that there
must be naturally occurring substancesin the body that
act on these sites, and in 1975 neurotransmitters were discoveredthat act on the samereceptorsthat are activated by
opium and heroin. One group of these transmitt~rs are the
pain-reducing endorphins.
348

CHAPTER 14 The Cutaneous Senses

Figure 14.27 I Resultsof Hofbauer

et al.'s (2001) experiment. Participants'
ratings of the intensity and the
unpleasantness of pain were affected
by hypnosis. (a) Results of hypnotic
suggestion to decrease or increase the
pain's intensity. (b) Results of suggestion
to decrease or increase the pain's
unpleasantness.

(a)

..
(b)

...

Less pain

Increases pain
by blocking
endorphins

(c)

. (a) Naloxone reduces the effect of heroin

by occupying a receptor site normally stimulated by heroin.
(b) Stimulating sites in the brain that cause the release of
endorphins can reduce pain by stimulating opiate receptor
sites. (c) Naloxone decreases the pain reduction caused by
endorphins by keeping the endorphins from reaching the
receptor sites.
Figure 14.28

Since the discovery of endorphins, researchershaveaccumulated a large amount of evidence

to pain reduction. For example, pain can be
by stimulating sites in the brain that release
(Figure 14.28b),
- - " J- ,..,oxone,which blocks endorphins from reaching their receptor sites (Figure 14.28c).
In addition to decreasingthe

bos (seepage345). This finding, along with other evidence,

suggeststhat the pain-reduction effect of placebos occurs
becauseplaceboscausethe releaseof endorphins. Because
placeboscontain no active chemicals, their effects have alwaysbeen thought to be "psychological." However,the idea
that placebos cause the release of endorphins provides a
physiologicalbasisfor what had previouslybeendescribedin
strictly psychological terms. (Also see"If You Want to Know
More" item 9, "The Physiologyof Placebos,"on page351.)
Finally, a recent study has identified genetic differencesin people that cause their brain to releasedifferent
amounts of opioids in responseto painful stimuli (Zubieta
et al., 2003). This study found that people whose brains releasedmore opioids were able to withstand higher levels of
pain stimulation.

Something to Consider: Pain

in Social Situations
The song lyrics "It only hurts for a little while" refers not to
the pain of falling down on the sidewalk but to the pain of
ending a romantic relationship. In our society,"pain" goes
beyond the physical pain we have been focusing on in this
chapter to include, for example,the distress one feels when
a relationship ends or the anguish one feels when excluded
from a group. Although this may seem more like "social
psychology" than "perception," there is new evidencethat
the pain of social loss may activate some of the brain areas
that are activated by physical pain.
Naomi Eisenbergerand coworkers(2003) determined
how the brain responds to social loss. Participants' brain
activity was measured in an fMRI scanner as they either
watched or played a computer game called CyberBall. Participants wereled to believethat they wereplaying the game
with two other playerswho were also in fMRI scanners,although in reality there wereno other players.After watching
the other "players" play the game, the participant was then
included in the game. After receiving seven throws from
the other players (actually preprogrammed by the experimenter), it became apparent to the participant that he or
shewas being excluded, becausethe other players stopped
throwing the ball to the participant.
During the exclusion part of the experiment, participants reported feeling ignored and excluded, and reported
somedistress.When this happened,their brain scanshowed
increasedactivation of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC)the sameareaof the brain that is activated by the emotional
suffering associatedwith physical pain (Figure 14.26).This
activation of the ACC was greater in participants who reported feeling greater social distress in responseto being
excluded.
If being hurt by feeling rejected activates pain-related
areasin the brain, what about watching someone else experiencing pain? The answer is that watching another person experiencepain also activates the ACC, especiallywhen

(a) Receive electric shocks

(b) Watch partner receive shocks

Figure 14.29 I Singer and coworkers (2004) used fMRI to

determine the areas of the brain activated by (a) receiving
electric shocks and (b) watching another person receive the
shocks. Singer proposes that the activation in (b) is related
to empathy for the other person. Empathy did not activate
the somatosensory cortex, but did activate other areas that
are activated by pain, such as the insula (tucked between the
parietal and temporal lobes) and anterior cingulate cortex
(Figure 14.26). (Adapted with permission from Holden, C.,
Imaging studies show how brain thinks about pain, Science,
303, 1121, 2004, AAAS.)

the person watching feels empathy-an understanding and

sharing of the other person'sfeelings.
Tania Singer and coworkers (2004) demonstrated this
by bringing romantically involved couples into the laboratory and having the woman, whosebrain activity was being
measuredby an fMRI scanner,either receiveshocks herself
or watch her male partner receiveshocks.The results, shown
in Figure 14.29,show that a number of brain areaswereactivated when the woman receivedthe shocks (Figure 14.29a),
and that some of the same areas were activated when she
watched her partner receiveshocks (Figure 14.29b).
To show thai the brain activity causedby watching their
partner was related to empathy, Singer had the women fill
out "empathy scales" designed to measure their tendency
to empathize with others. As she predicted, women with
higher "empathy scores"showed higher activation of their
ACC. Thus, although "social" pain may be causedby stimulation that is very different from physical pain, these two
types of pain apparently share some physiological mechanisms. (Also seeAvenanti et al., 2005; Lamm et al., 2007.)

Somethina to Consider: Pain in Social Situations

349