Behavioural neuroscience of human pain communication

达尔文的遗产包括对用于交流情感的可靠行为模式的详细描述，以及这样的反应为社会物种提供独特的适应优势的建议。在这种情况下，疼痛的交流构成了一个基本的过程，可能至少有两个不同的功能。首先，疼痛表达在旁观者的直接环境中发出潜在威胁的信号(即替代的疼痛信号)，并可能允许他们预测潜在的伤害(即预测)，防止自身暴露于伤害的来源(即避免)，和/或触发或促进自卫反应以减少受伤的风险(即保护)。第二个功能涉及引发关怀行为，其推论是，这些行为可以减少进一步伤害的风险和/或表达痛苦的人的痛苦。基于传播模型，人们可以区分这一过程中的三个阶段，反映了编码(作为行动的传播)、解码(作为互动的传播)和随后的社会调节过程(作为交易的传播)。在神经心理学术语中，编码涉及由痛苦事件触发的疼痛表征的激活，并在不同的输出通道(如面部表情)中表达(即编码)。解码需要感知不同的疼痛信号，并被认为涉及观察者对伤害性事件和相应疼痛状态的部分共享的神经/心理表征的激活。最后，交易反映了信息交换对接受者和表达者的神经生理和心理状态的潜在影响。在这里，我们建议使用实验方法、心理生理学和脑功能成像方法来探索健康人这三个阶段疼痛交流的神经机制。

Darwin's legacy includes a detailed description of the reliable behavioral patterns produced to communicate emotions and the proposal that such responses provide unique adaptive advantages to social species. In this context, the communication of pain constitutes a fundamental process that may have at least two distinct functions. First, pain expression signals potential threats in the immediate environment of the bystanders (i.e. vicarious pain signals) and may allow them to anticipate potential harm (i.e. predict), prevent self-exposure to the source of nociception (i.e. avoid), and/or trigger or facilitate self-defensive responses to reduce the risk of injury (i.e. protect). The second function concerns the elicitation of solicitous behaviours with the corollary assumption that these may reduce the risk of further injury and/or the suffering of the person expressing pain. Based on communication models one can distinguish three phases in this process reflecting the encoding (communication as action), decoding (communication as interaction) and the ensuing social regulatory processes (communication as transaction). In neuropsychological terms, encoding involves the activation of a representation of pain triggered by a painful event and expressed (i.e. encoded) in various output channels (e.g. facial expression). Decoding requires the perception of vicarious pain signals and is thought to involve the activation in the observer of a partly shared neural/mental representation of the nociceptive event and the corresponding pain state. Finally, transaction reflects the potential impact of the information exchanged on the receiver's and the expresser's neurophysiological and psychological state. Here, we propose to explore the neural mechanisms underlying these three stages of pain communication using experimental approaches, psychophysiology and functional brain imaging in healthy human.