The DOI matches its Crossref record; 119 of the 119 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Learning to predict and control harmful events: chronic pain and conditioning
Abstract
Pain is a biologically relevant signal and response to bodily threat, associated with the urge to restore the integrity of the body. Immediate protective responses include increased arousal, selective attention, escape, and facial expressions, followed by recuperative avoidance and safety-seeking behaviors. To facilitate early and effective protection against future bodily threat or injury, learning takes place rapidly. Learning is the observable change in behavior due to events in the internal and external environmental and includes nonassociative (habituation and sensitization) and associative learning (Pavlovian and operant conditioning). Once acquired, these knowledge representations remain stored in memory and may generalize to perceptually or functionally similar events. Moreover, these processes are not just a consequence of pain; they may directly influence pain perception. In contrast to the rapid acquisition of learned responses, their extinction is slow, fragile, context dependent and only occurs through inhibitory processes. Here, we review features of associative forms of learning in humans that contribute to pain, pain-related distress, and disability and discuss promising future directions. Although conditioning has a long and honorable history, a conditioning perspective still might open new windows on novel treatment modalities that facilitate the well-being of individuals with chronic pain.
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“Furthermore, experiencing PEs could, over time, change participant’s association between the cue and the pain outcome15,16,29.”
From Boundary effects of expectation in human pain perception (2019) · cites this paper as [29]
In the citing paper
“Our interest in how perception changes across the experimental session was motivated by the observation that sensitivity to painful stimulation can vary over time15,16,28,29.”
From Boundary effects of expectation in human pain perception (2019) · cites this paper as [29]
In the citing paper
“Multiple authors have pointed out the lack of other relevant psychological phenomena such as motivation (Crombez et al., 2012), associative learning (Krypotos et al., 2022;Vlaeyen, 2015), attentionregulation (Boselie & Vlaeyen, 2017;Crombez et al., 2012), personality (Crofford, 2015;Goubert et al., 2004;Wong et al., 2015), trauma (Afari et al., 2014), and social relationships (Edwards et al., 2016”
From Beyond yellow flags: The Big‐Five personality traits and psychologically informed musculoskeletal rehabilitation. (2023) · cites this paper as Vlaeyen, 2015
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Metadata
- Authors
- Vlaeyen, J. W. S.
- Affiliations
- Maastricht University (NL)
- Corresponding author
- Vlaeyen, Johan W.S.
- ORCID
- Vlaeyen, Johan W.S.
- Venue
- Pain
- Published
- 2015-04
- Volume
- 156
- Issue
- Supplement 1
- Pages
- S86-S93
- ISSN
- 0304-3959 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2152447594
- Cited by
- 159
- References
- 119
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 12 · 2022: 13 · 2021: 15 · 2020: 19 · 2019: 14 · 2018: 22 · 2017: 15 · 2016: 13 · 2015: 4
- FWCI
- 2.21
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Pain (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Research Publications (Maastricht University) (publishedVersion)
- Lirias (KU Leuven) (submittedVersion)
- Research Publications (Maastricht University) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology (medical) › Pain Mechanisms and Treatments
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory and Neural Mechanisms
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › Physical Therapy, Sports Therapy and Rehabilitation › Musculoskeletal pain and rehabilitation
- Keywords
- associative learning, classical conditioning, operant conditioning, habituation, sensitization, extinction, pain perception, chronic pain, pain-related distress, pain-related disability, protective behavior
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Avoidance Learning, Conditioning, Psychological, Discrimination, Psychological, Extinction, Psychological, Generalization, Psychological, Humans, Chronic Pain
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