CAS Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
Hum Brain Mapp. 2023 Jun 15;44(9):3493-3505. doi: 10.1002/hbm.26293. Epub 2023 Mar 29.
Music shows tremendous promise in pain relief, especially when considering its non-pharmacological nature. However, our understanding of the precise mechanisms behind music-induced analgesia (MIA) remains poor. The positive emotional state induced by music is one of the key components explaining MIA. To test this possibility and reveal its neural correlates, the present study applied nociceptive laser stimuli to 28 healthy participants when their liked or disliked songs were played as background music, or when they were resting in silence. Differences among conditions were quantified by self-reports of pain intensity and unpleasantness, as well as brain activations in response to acute laser stimuli. As expected, liked music significantly lowered pain ratings to acute painful stimuli compared to disliked music and no music. Consistent with this observation, brain activations in response to acute painful stimuli were deceased within brain areas encoding sensory components of pain, such as the right precentral and postcentral gyri (PreCG/PoCG), brain areas related to affective components of pain, such as the anterior cingulate cortex and bilateral putamen, and brain areas associated with motor control and avoidance reactions to pain, such as the left cerebellum, when liked music was played in the background in comparison to disliked music. Importantly, the relationship between music listening and differences in pain ratings of two music conditions was mediated by the magnitude of right PreCG/PoCG and left cerebellum activations. These findings deepened our understanding of the analgesic benefits of background liked music, a property relevant to clinical applications.
音乐在缓解疼痛方面具有巨大的潜力，尤其是考虑到其非药物性质。然而，我们对音乐引起的镇痛（MIA）的确切机制的理解仍然很差。音乐引起的积极情绪状态是解释 MIA 的关键因素之一。为了验证这种可能性并揭示其神经相关性，本研究在 28 名健康参与者中应用了疼痛激光刺激，当他们喜欢或不喜欢的歌曲作为背景音乐播放时，或当他们安静地休息时。通过对疼痛强度和不愉快程度的自我报告以及对急性激光刺激的大脑激活情况来量化条件之间的差异。正如预期的那样，与不喜欢的音乐和没有音乐相比，喜欢的音乐显著降低了对急性疼痛刺激的疼痛评分。与这一观察结果一致，当喜欢的音乐作为背景音乐播放时，与不喜欢的音乐相比，大脑中编码疼痛感觉成分的区域（如右中央前回和中央后回（PreCG/PoCG））、与疼痛情感成分相关的区域（如前扣带皮层和双侧壳核）以及与疼痛的运动控制和回避反应相关的区域（如左小脑）的大脑激活减少。重要的是，音乐聆听与两种音乐条件下疼痛评分差异之间的关系受到右 PreCG/PoCG 和左小脑激活程度的调节。这些发现加深了我们对背景音乐中喜欢的音乐的镇痛益处的理解，这一特性与临床应用有关。
