Functional dissociation of stimulus intensity encoding and predictive coding of pain in the insula
Open accessAbstract
The computational principles by which the brain creates a painful experience from nociception are still unknown. Classic theories suggest that cortical regions either reflect stimulus intensity or additive effects of intensity and expectations, respectively. By contrast, predictive coding theories provide a unified framework explaining how perception is shaped by the integration of beliefs about the world with mismatches resulting from the comparison of these beliefs against sensory input. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging during a probabilistic heat pain paradigm, we investigated which computations underlie pain perception. Skin conductance, pupil dilation, and anterior insula responses to cued pain stimuli strictly followed the response patterns hypothesized by the predictive coding model, whereas posterior insula encoded stimulus intensity. This novel functional dissociation of pain processing within the insula together with previously observed alterations in chronic pain offer a novel interpretation of aberrant pain processing as disturbed weighting of predictions and prediction errors.
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Current perspectives on the perceptual mechanism behind expectation effects suggest that an agent maintains multiple potential hypotheses about the cause of a sensory input, and selects the one which best represents the incoming sensory information at any given time.
“Current perspectives on the perceptual mechanism behind expectation effects10,35–38 suggest that an agent maintains multiple potential hypotheses about the cause of a sensory input, and selects the one which best represents the incoming sensory information at any given time.”
From Boundary effects of expectation in human pain perception (2019) · cites this paper as [38]
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Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredLong-term cross-modal predictions may include a common prior for different forms of physical magnitude potentially located in posterior parietal cortex, and integration of predicted and actual interoceptive signals in insular cortex.
“Other proposals of long-term cross-modal predictions include a common prior for different forms of physical magnitude (e.g., distance, rotation angle, time) [40,41], that is potentially located in posterior parietal cortex [42], and integration of predicted and actual interoceptive signals in insular cortex [43,44].”
From How Do Expectations Shape Perception? (2018) · cites this paper as [43]
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References 116 · Cited by 184
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- Jeffreys H 1961 Theory of Probability Oxford, UK Oxford University Press
- Authors
- Geuter, S., Boll, S., Eippert, F., & Büchel, C.
- Affiliations
- University of Colorado Boulder (US)
- University Hospital Heidelberg (DE)
- University of Oxford (GB)
- University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Geuter, Stephan
- Venue
- eLife
- Publisher
- eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd
- Published
- 2017-05-19
- Volume
- 6
- ISSN
- 2050-084X (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC5470871
- OpenAlex
- W2614737846
- Cited by
- 184
- References
- 116
- Citations by year
- 2026: 18 · 2025: 21 · 2024: 20 · 2023: 25 · 2022: 24 · 2021: 18 · 2020: 23 · 2019: 17 · 2018: 14 · 2017: 4
- FWCI
- 11.74
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- eLife (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Max Planck Digital Library (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (SFB 936 A06, Fellowship GE 2774/1-1)
- European Commission (ERC Advanced Investigator Grant 2010-AdG_20100407)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Pain Mechanisms and Treatments
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Pain Management and Placebo Effect
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine › Pain Management and Treatment
- Keywords
- pain perception, insula, predictive coding, anterior insula, posterior insula, prediction error, chronic pain, skin conductance, pupil dilation
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Brain Mapping, Cerebral Cortex, Female, Humans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Young Adult, Pain Perception
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