Beccherle Maddalena, Scandola Michele
NPSY.Lab-VR, Department of Human Sciences, University of Verona, Verona, Italy.
J Neuropsychol. 2025 Mar;19 Suppl 1(Suppl 1):26-41. doi: 10.1111/jnp.12390. Epub 2024 Sep 5.
Pain, as a multidimensional and subjective experience, intertwines with various aspects of body representation, involving sensory, affective and motivational components. This review explores the bidirectional relationship between pain and body representations, emphasizing the impact of the sense of ownership on pain perception, the transformative impact of pain on motor imagery, the effects associated with vicarious pain perception on body representations and the role of pain in the maintenance of body representations in specific clinical conditions. Literature indicates complex interactions between pain and body representations, with the sense of ownership inducing analgesic effects in some cases and hyperalgesia in others, contingent upon factors such as the appearance of the affected limb. Pain sensations inform the body on which actions might be executed without harm, and which are potentially dangerous. This information impacts on motor imagery too, showing reduced motor imagery and increased reaction times in tasks where motor imagery involves the painful body parts. Finally, contrary to the conventional view, according to which pain impairs body representation, evidence suggests that pain can serve as an informative somatosensory index, preserving or even enhancing the representation of the absent or affected body parts. This bidirectional relationship highlights the dynamic and multifaceted nature of the interplay between pain and body representations, offering insights into the adaptive nature of the central nervous system in response to perceived bodily states.
疼痛作为一种多维度的主观体验，与身体表征的各个方面相互交织，涉及感觉、情感和动机成分。本综述探讨了疼痛与身体表征之间的双向关系，强调了所有权感对疼痛感知的影响、疼痛对运动想象的变革性影响、替代性疼痛感知对身体表征的相关影响以及疼痛在特定临床情况下维持身体表征的作用。文献表明疼痛与身体表征之间存在复杂的相互作用，所有权感在某些情况下会产生镇痛作用，而在其他情况下会导致痛觉过敏，这取决于受影响肢体外观等因素。疼痛感觉会告知身体哪些动作可以安全执行，哪些动作可能有危险。这些信息也会影响运动想象，在运动想象涉及疼痛身体部位的任务中，会表现出运动想象减少和反应时间增加。最后，与传统观点认为疼痛会损害身体表征相反，有证据表明疼痛可以作为一种信息性的体感指标，保留甚至增强缺失或受影响身体部位的表征。这种双向关系凸显了疼痛与身体表征之间相互作用的动态和多面性，为中枢神经系统对感知到的身体状态的适应性本质提供了见解。
