Psychology Department, Stetson University, DeLand, FL, USA.
Arch Clin Neuropsychol. 2024 Aug 24;39(6):766-769. doi: 10.1093/arclin/acae009.
Pain's impact on executive function is understood and specific cognitive abilities may contribute to coping with pain, though past work is confounded by chronic pain populations. This study aims to understand how executive functioning may predict the experience of pain among healthy adults. It was hypothesized that poorer executive functioning would predict more intense pain perception.
A total of 172 young adults were recruited for participation. Three aspects of executive functioning (i.e., impulsivity, cognitive flexibility, working memory) were assessed before randomizing participants to varying types and levels of stimulated pain.
Results supported the hypothesis that poorer performance on tasks of working memory predicts more intense pain perception.
Findings are counter to past work that has found inhibition may be important for coping, and future research is needed to understand the impact of specific cognitive abilities as well as how this may differ for chronic pain.
人们已经认识到疼痛对执行功能的影响，并且特定的认知能力可能有助于应对疼痛，尽管过去的研究受到慢性疼痛人群的影响。本研究旨在了解执行功能如何预测健康成年人的疼痛体验。研究假设较差的执行功能会预测更强烈的疼痛感知。
共招募了 172 名年轻成年人参与。在随机分配参与者接受不同类型和程度的刺激疼痛之前，评估了执行功能的三个方面（即冲动性、认知灵活性、工作记忆）。
结果支持了这样的假设，即工作记忆任务表现较差预测疼痛感知更强烈。
这些发现与过去的研究相反，过去的研究发现抑制可能对应对很重要，需要进一步研究特定认知能力的影响，以及这如何因慢性疼痛而有所不同。
