• Merve Karacaoglu, Simone Meijer, Kaya J Peerdeman, Elise Dusseldorp, Karin B Jensen, Dieuwke S Veldhuijzen, Henriët van Middendorp, and EversAndrea W MAWMHealth, Medical and Neuropsychology Unit.Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition (LIBC).Department of Psychiatry, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden.Medical Delta, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Leiden University & Delft University.
• Health, Medical and Neuropsychology Unit.
• Clin J Pain. 2023 Jun 1; 39 (6): 259269259-269.

ObjectivesThe current paper explores the psychological predictors of nocebo hyperalgesia and whether the reduction of nocebo hyperalgesia can be predicted by susceptibility to nocebo hyperalgesia and psychological characteristics.MethodsNocebo effects on pressure pain were first experimentally induced in 83 healthy female participants through conditioning with open-label instructions about the pain-worsening function of a sham TENS device to assess susceptibility to nocebo hyperalgesia. Participants were then randomized to 1 out of 2 nocebo-reduction conditions (counterconditioning/extinction) or to continued nocebo-conditioning (control), each combined with open-label instructions about the new sham device function. Dispositional optimism, trait and state anxiety, pain catastrophizing, fear of pain, and body vigilance were assessed at baseline.ResultsThe results showed that lower optimism and higher trait anxiety were related to a stronger induction of nocebo hyperalgesia. Moreover, a stronger induction of nocebo hyperalgesia and higher trait anxiety predicted a larger nocebo reduction across interventions. Also, nocebo hyperalgesia and optimism moderated the effects of the nocebo-reduction interventions, whereby larger nocebo hyperalgesia and lower optimism were associated with a larger nocebo reduction after counterconditioning, compared with control, and also extinction for larger nocebo hyperalgesia.DiscussionOur findings suggest that open-label conditioning leads to stronger nocebo hyperalgesia when trait anxiety is high and dispositional optimism is low, while these psychological characteristics, along with larger nocebo hyperalgesia, also predict open-label counterconditioning to be an effective nocebo-reduction strategy. Susceptibility to nocebo hyperalgesia, trait anxiety, and dispositional optimism might be indicators of a flexible pain regulatory system.Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.

11 keywords...

hide…