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Pain-associated approach and avoidance behaviours are critically involved in the development and maintenance of chronic pain. Empirical research suggests a key role of operant learning mechanisms, and first experimental paradigms were developed for their investigation within a controlled laboratory setting. We introduce a new Virtual Reality paradigm to the study of pain-related behaviour and investigate pain experiences on multiple dimensions. The paradigm evaluates the effects of three-tiered heat-pain stimuli applied contingent versus non-contingent with three types of arm movements in naturalistic virtual sceneries. Behaviour, self-reported pain-related fear, pain expectancy and electrodermal activity were assessed in 42 healthy participants during an acquisition phase (contingent movement-pain association) and a modification phase (no contingent movement-pain association). Pain-associated approach behaviour, as measured by arm movements followed by a severe heat stimulus, quickly decreased in-line with the arm movement-pain contingency. Slower effects were observed in fear of movement-related pain and pain expectancy ratings. During the subsequent modification phase, the removal of the pain contingencies modified all three indices. In both phases, skin conductance responses resemble the pattern observed for approach behaviour, while skin conductance levels equal the pattern observed for the self-ratings. Our findings highlight a fast reduction in approach behaviour in the face of acute pain and inform about accompanying psychological and physiological processes. We discuss strength and limitations of our paradigm for future investigations with the ultimate goal of gaining a comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms involved in chronic pain development, maintenance, and its therapy.
Anxiety is characterized by anxious anticipation and heightened vigilance to uncertain threat. However, if threat is not reliably indicated by a specific cue, the context in which threat was previously experienced becomes its best predictor, leading to anxiety. A suitable means to induce anxiety experimentally is context conditioning: In one context (CTX+), an unpredictable aversive stimulus (US) is repeatedly presented, in contrast to a second context (CTX−), in which no US is ever presented. In this EEG study, we investigated attentional mechanisms during acquisition and extinction learning in 38 participants, who underwent a context conditioning protocol. Flickering video stimuli (32 s clips depicting virtual offices representing CTX+/−) were used to evoke steady‐state visual evoked potentials (ssVEPs) as an index of visuocortical engagement with the contexts. Analyses of the electrocortical responses suggest a successful induction of the ssVEP signal by video presentation in flicker mode. Furthermore, we found clear indices of context conditioning and extinction learning on a subjective level, while cortical processing of the CTX+ was unexpectedly reduced during video presentation. The differences between CTX+ and CTX− diminished during extinction learning. Together, these results indicate that the dynamic sensory input of the video presentation leads to disruptions in the ssVEP signal, which is greater for motivationally significant, threatening contexts.