Facing pain is effortful: a multidisciplinary approach to investigate the effects of pain on perception of effort and performance

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Every day, when we perform voluntary physical and mental tasks, such as climbing the stairs or solving complex puzzle, we perceive effort. The perception of effort is associated with voluntary actions, contributes to the sense of agency, and provides crucial information on the perceived cost of personal actions. Interestingly, while it seems obvious that when we perceive pain the tasks of our everyday life become more effortful (or harder), this assumption has not been investigated. The proposed work uses a multidisciplinary approach to understand how pain impacts performance and the perception of effort during cognitive, physical and dual tasks. The first objective will be to test the hypothesis that the preservation of cognitive and physical performance in the presence of pain is due to an increase in resource allocation that is reflected in an increased perceived effort (subproject 1, performed by undergraduate students supervised by the principal investigator -PI- and mentored by one PhD student). The second objective will be to test the hypothesis that the increased perception of effort in the presence of pain during cognitive and physical performance is associated with alterations in corticospinal excitability (subproject 2, performed by MSc students supervised by the PI). The third objective will be to identify brain networks involved in perception of effort, during cognitive and physical performance, and to characterize their interactions with pain-related brain networks (subproject 3, performed by PhD students co-supervised by the PI and his collaborators experienced with brain activations and networks measurement and analysis). The research costs include each year one full i) BSc Honours research fellowship, ii) MSc fellowship and iii) PhD fellowship. The methodological complexity is in line with the HPQs involved in each subproject. Subproject 1 focuses on behavioural studies. Subproject 2 requires the HPQ to master transcranial magnetic stimulation, and subproject 3 requires the HPQ to master brain imaging. For these reasons, these two subprojects will be the pillar of funding for PhD and MSc research fellowships. The multidisciplinary approach proposed is unique as it investigates the construct of effort and its perception across domains (mental and physical). The proposed work will contribute to the basic neuroscience of perception of effort by providing new insights into this perception involved i) in the self-regulation of behaviour in the context of goal-oriented tasks and ii) in the decreased performance in the presence of fatigue. As no study previously investigated the possibility that the negative impact of pain on performance could be mediated by its impact on perception of effort, this project contributes to better understand how facing pain makes voluntary tasks harder. The proposed work has a strong potential to open new lines of research to better understand how pain impacts performance.