Poster No:
893
Submission Type:
Abstract Submission
Authors:
Taryn Berman1, Sean Devine1, Éliane Rochelet1, Ross Otto1, Mathieu Roy1
Institutions:
1McGill University, Montreal, Quebec
First Author:
Co-Author(s):
Introduction:
Accepting pain is counterintuitive, yet individuals willfully accept immediate discomfort to gain long-term benefits. Studies using hypothetical pain or short temporal delays suggest that people may prefer future pain to avoid immediate pain (Harris, 2012), while others propose that people prefer immediate pain to get it over with (Berns et al., 2006; Story et al., 2013). Improving upon previous literature, our study sought to investigate how inter-temporal choices for pain are made and the underlying brain mechanisms involved.
Methods:
Fifty-eight Participants (F = 43, Mean Age = 21.00 ± 2.72) first underwent a sensory calibration procedure to assess their pain tolerance. Next, they performed an inter-temporal choice task in an fMRI, wherein they selected between two choices which differed in pain intensity (i.e., 60%, 70%, 80%, or 90% of their pain tolerance) and delay (i.e., pain now vs. 15s, 30s, 1-hour, or 1-month). Importantly, all participants were required to return after one-month to receive the delayed pain chosen.
Results:
We found that subjects preferred more pain in order to experience it sooner (t(57) = 10.635, p < .001, M = .655 (95% CI = [.626, .684]), d = 1.399). Using multilevel modeling, we found that delay (γ = 1.253, p < .001) and pain intensity (γ = 13.270, p < .001) for each offer predict pain now decisions. Computational modeling results revealed that delayed pain is perceived and "valued" as being worse than immediate pain. Brain imaging analyses revealed that worse pain offers – those of higher pain intensity and longer delay which are lower in subjective value – were associated with clusters of activation in regions of the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC). We also observed that two distinct neural systems were associated with short (i.e., 15s and 30s) and long (i.e., 1-hour and 1-month) delays. Short delays saw activation in regions connected with pain perception and anticipation (i.e., anterior cingulate cortex and anterior insula; Ploghaus et al., 1999), while longer delays were related to imagining the future (i.e., superior parietal lobule, dmPFC, dorsolateral PFC, precuneus, and posterior cingulate cortex; Addis et al., 2007; Schacter et al., 2012). All fMRI data was two-tailed FDR corrected (q < .05).
Conclusions:
Overall, our results suggest that people would rather accept more immediate pain than wait for less. Neural activations in the dmPFC suggest that this region integrates stimulus magnitude and delay and produces a value for a given future event. Activity associated with delay indicates that, as delay increases, there is an increasing focus on imagining the future delay rather than pain intensity. This study has important implications for interventions aimed to reduce detrimental biases that lead to added suffering.
Higher Cognitive Functions:
Decision Making 1
Modeling and Analysis Methods:
Activation (eg. BOLD task-fMRI) 2
Keywords:
FUNCTIONAL MRI
Modeling
Pain
Other - Decision Making
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
Provide references using author date format
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