Memory for pain: neural processing and cognitive intervention strategies

疼痛记忆：神经处理和认知干预策略

• 批准号: 2445952
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Kent
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2020 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2445952
• 关键词: Memory; pain; neural; processing; cognitive

Pain is a sensory and emotional experience that is important for learning, but, few studies have explored our ability to remember painful experiences as an objective in its own right. Understanding the mechanisms underlying memory for pain could help us understand and intervene in pain-related disorders. Some of these disorders, indeed, have been recently characterised as stemming from maladaptive pain.I am proposing a series of studies committed to this line of investigation. These studies will be guided by two main aims. The first is to investigate the neural processes involved inworking memory for pain (i.e. short-term storage of a pain memory). This will allow me to understand the early stages of pain memory consolidation-the process by which short-term memory is stabilised into long-term memory. Using psychophysical, electrophysiological and brain stimulation methods, I will investigate the neural mechanisms involved in holding pain in working memory, and the extent to which they overlap with working memory for non-painful touch. I will compare participants' performance on painful and non-painful stimulus discrimination tasks requiring them to hold one stimulus in memory and compare it with another, whilst transiently disrupting brain regions known to be involved in tactile working memory.My second aim is to use a well-grounded and rapidly advancing paradigm of memory research called reconsolidation interference to assess how we can interfere with associative pain memories that have already been stabilised into long-term memory. According to this theory, reactivation of a memory trace initiates a window of vulnerability to memory interference. Specifically, it may be possible to use a dual-load paradigm in which neural processes recruited by a cognitive/behavioural task interfere with those required to reconsolidate the memory, destabilising the memory trace. This offers a potential mechanism to erase maladaptive pain memories. To test this possibility, I will use transient, experimentally induced pain in healthy volunteers during a cue conditioning procedure. During a reactivation phase, participants will perform a working memory task that targets either sensory or emotional processing, since those two processes are fundamental to pain experiences. In the final phase, I will measure arousal responses to the visual cues previously paired with pain to determine whether the interference procedure was effective. These studies will determine whether sensory or emotional processing is more important for consolidating pain memories, and therefore more successful at interfering with their reconsolidation. Additionally, in the long term, I would like to apply the successful interventions to spontaneous clinical pain. This will provide insight into the nature of memory for pain in clinical pain samples and direct potential intervention strategies in these populations.The research I am proposing will contribute to our theoretical understanding of memory for pain. Importantly, it will show how working memory for pain differs from or overlaps with tactile working memory, and whether sensory or emotional representations of pain are more predominant in pain memories. In particular, it could shed light on the contributions of somatosensory pathways and affective brain networks to pain memories in conditions of persistent, non-resolving pain. Understanding these processes can provide insight into the nature of pain memory traces and why they may show resistance to erasure. Alongside significant theoretical contributions, my research would have important implications for pain-management strategies and non-pharmacological clinical interventions.

疼痛是一种对学习很重要的感官和情感体验，但是，很少有研究探索我们记忆痛苦经历的能力。了解疼痛记忆的潜在机制可以帮助我们理解和干预疼痛相关的疾病。事实上，这些疾病中的一些最近被认为是由适应不良的疼痛引起的，我建议进行一系列致力于这方面调查的研究。这些研究将遵循两个主要目标。第一部分是研究疼痛工作记忆（即疼痛记忆的短时记忆）的神经过程。这将使我了解疼痛记忆巩固的早期阶段短期记忆稳定为长期记忆的过程。使用心理物理学，电生理学和脑刺激的方法，我将调查的神经机制参与举行疼痛的工作记忆，以及在何种程度上，他们与工作记忆重叠的非痛苦的触摸。我将比较参与者在痛苦和非痛苦刺激辨别任务中的表现，这些任务要求他们在记忆中保留一种刺激并将其与另一种刺激进行比较，同时短暂干扰已知与触觉工作记忆有关的大脑区域。我的第二个目标是使用一个良好的-一种被称为再巩固干扰的记忆研究范式，旨在评估我们如何干扰具有以下特征的关联性疼痛记忆：已经稳定在长期记忆中了根据这一理论，记忆痕迹的重新激活启动了一个易受记忆干扰的窗口。具体地说，可以使用双负荷范式，其中认知/行为任务所招募的神经过程干扰了重新巩固记忆所需的神经过程，使记忆痕迹不稳定。这提供了一种消除适应不良疼痛记忆的潜在机制。为了测试这种可能性，我将在提示条件反射过程中对健康志愿者使用短暂的、实验性诱导的疼痛。在重新激活阶段，参与者将执行一项工作记忆任务，目标是感官或情感处理，因为这两个过程是疼痛体验的基础。在最后阶段，我将测量先前与疼痛配对的视觉线索的唤醒反应，以确定干扰程序是否有效。这些研究将确定感觉或情绪处理对巩固疼痛记忆更重要，因此更成功地干扰它们的重新巩固。此外，从长远来看，我想将成功的干预措施应用于自发性临床疼痛。这将为我们深入了解临床疼痛样本中疼痛记忆的本质和这些人群中直接的潜在干预策略提供帮助，我所建议的研究将有助于我们对疼痛记忆的理论理解。重要的是，它将显示疼痛的工作记忆与触觉工作记忆的不同或重叠，以及疼痛的感觉或情感表征是否在疼痛记忆中更占主导地位。特别是，它可以阐明躯体感觉通路和情感脑网络在持续性，非解决性疼痛条件下对疼痛记忆的贡献。了解这些过程可以深入了解疼痛记忆痕迹的性质，以及为什么它们可能显示出对擦除的抵抗力。除了重大的理论贡献，我的研究将对疼痛管理策略和非药物临床干预具有重要意义。