Tejera-Alonso Angela, Fernández-Palacios Francisco G, Pacho-Hernández Juan C, Naeimi Arvin, de-la-Llave-Rincón Ana I, Ambite-Quesada Silvia, Ortega-Santiago Ricardo, Fernández-de-Las-Peñas César, Cigarán-Mendez Margarita
Department of Psychology, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, 28922 Alcorcón, Spain.
Escuela Internacional de Doctorado, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, 28922 Alcorcón, Spain.
Life (Basel). 2024 Sep 10;14(9):1141. doi: 10.3390/life14091141.
The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of executive functioning and cognitive performance on individual experimentally induced pain perception during distractor tasks in an asymptomatic pain-free population. A total of 59 healthy pain-free subjects (59.3% women, mean age: 46.5 ± 24.7 years) completed a battery test that assessed execution functions (cognitive flexibility, working memory, mental inhibition), attention level, and psychological aspects (anxiety/depressive levels-HADS, pain catastrophizing-PCS, pain anxiety symptoms-PASS 20, sleep quality-PSQI) before conducting two n-back distraction tasks. Pain was experimentally induced with a thermal stimulus that was able to induce moderate pain (70/100 points) and applied to the non-dominant forearm. The thermal stimulus was applied before and during both (one-back and two-back) distraction tasks. The analyses consisted of separated repeated-measures ANOVA that considered the functioning on each test (cognitive flexibility, working memory, mental inhibition, selective attention) and controlled for sociodemographic and psychological aspects by comparing the pain intensity at the baseline and during the one-back and two-back distractor tasks. All ANOVAs found a significant effect of the distraction task, which indicates that the perceived pain intensity scores were lower during the one-back and two-back tasks ( < 0.001) as compared with the baseline. No interaction effect between the distractor tasks and working memory ( = 0.546), mental inhibition ( = 0.16), cognitive flexibility ( = 0.069), or selective attention ( = 0.105) was identified. The current study found that a distraction task decreased the perceived intensity of experimentally induced pain in asymptomatic pain-free individuals and that this effect was not related to executive function or attention levels.
本研究的目的是调查在无症状且无疼痛的人群中，执行功能和认知表现对分心任务期间个体实验性诱导疼痛感知的影响。共有59名健康的无疼痛受试者（女性占59.3%，平均年龄：46.5±24.7岁）在进行两项n-back分心任务之前，完成了一系列评估执行功能（认知灵活性、工作记忆、心理抑制）、注意力水平和心理方面（焦虑/抑郁水平-HADS、疼痛灾难化-PCS、疼痛焦虑症状-PASS 20、睡眠质量-PSQI）的测试。通过热刺激实验性诱导疼痛，该热刺激能够诱导中度疼痛（70/100分），并施加于非优势前臂。在两项（单背和双背）分心任务之前和期间均施加热刺激。分析包括单独的重复测量方差分析，该分析考虑了每项测试（认知灵活性、工作记忆、心理抑制、选择性注意力）的功能，并通过比较基线以及单背和双背分心任务期间的疼痛强度，控制了社会人口统计学和心理方面的因素。所有方差分析均发现分心任务有显著影响，这表明与基线相比，单背和双背任务期间的疼痛强度感知得分较低（<0.001）。未发现分心任务与工作记忆（=0.546）、心理抑制（=0.16）、认知灵活性（=0.069）或选择性注意力（=0.105）之间存在交互作用。当前研究发现，分心任务可降低无症状且无疼痛个体中实验性诱导疼痛的感知强度，且这种效应与执行功能或注意力水平无关。
