Author: Bethany Brookshire / Source: Science News for Students
Here’s a good reason not to dwell on how much that flu shot is going to hurt. If you think it’s going to be really painful, it will.
But expect just a small jab and the shot will likely hurt less. That’s the implications of a new study.It didn’t actually study people getting a shot in the arm. The human volunteers instead got a burning sensation from a hot electrode. But the idea is the same.
The brain learns when to expect a nasty pain and then responds accordingly, the new data show. But people only learn from their painful experiences if the actual discomfort matches what they had been led to expect.
Marieke Jepma is a neuroscientist — someone who studies the brain. She works at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, where she studies how people perceive pain. Over time, she became fascinated by how expectations about pain can influence how how much discomfort someone feels. She began to wonder how predictions affect how their brain processes pain — and learn from it.
To study pain, scientists have to (gulp) inflict pain. Jepma and her team recruited 62 brave volunteers. The researchers placed a small square patch on each volunteer’s arm (below the elbow) or leg (below the knee). The patch held an electrode that could heat up to deliver searing pain. Each volunteer then watched a screen as a picture appeared. One shape warned that the pain they were about to get would be bad. Another warned that the coming pain would be more bearable. Then the electrode heated up to about 49° Celsius (120° Fahrenheit).
“We follow guidelines,” Jepma notes. The pain can’t be maintained for too long. The temperatures used also can’t be too high. “Of course, I tried it on myself,” Jepma says. “It’s like holding a cup of hot coffee,” she explains — one you’d prefer to put down.
Prepare for pain!
Before the electrode got hot, the participants were asked to rank how much they thought its heat would hurt on a scale from one to 100. After each painful episode,…
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