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The perception of pain can be significantly modulated by the behavioral context. Here, we investigated how contextual modulations of pain are subserved in the human brain. We independently modulated the attentional and emotional context of painful stimuli and recorded brain activity by using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Our results confirm that attention to pain and a negative emotional context increases pain perception and this is concomitantly associated with increased neural activity in the anterior insular cortex. Connectivity analyses further reveal that during attentional and emotional modulations of pain, the anterior insula selectively and flexibly connects to attentional and emotional brain networks in frontoparietal and medial temporal lobe areas, respectively. We conclude that the flexible functional connectivity of the anterior insula to other functional systems of the brain, for example, attentional and emotional brain networks, subserves the extraordinary sensitivity of the pain experience to contextual modulations.

Original publication

DOI

10.1093/cercor/bhq146

Type

Journal article

Journal

Cereb Cortex

Publication Date

03/2011

Volume

21

Pages

719 - 726

Keywords

Adult, Attention, Brain Mapping, Cerebral Cortex, Emotions, Humans, Image Processing, Computer-Assisted, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Neural Pathways, Pain, Pain Perception, Young Adult