Pain
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This research examined selective biases in visual attention related to fear of pain by tracking eye movements (EM) toward pain-related stimuli among the pain-fearful. EM of 21 young adults scoring high on a fear of pain measure (H-FOP) and 20 lower-scoring (L-FOP) control participants were measured during a dot-probe task that featured sensory pain-neutral, health catastrophe-neutral and neutral-neutral word pairs. Analyses indicated that the H-FOP group was more likely to direct immediate visual attention toward sensory pain and health catastrophe words than was the L-FOP group. ⋯ Conversely, groups did not differ on EM indices of attentional maintenance (i.e., first fixation duration, gaze duration, and average fixation duration) or reaction times to dot probes. Finally, both groups showed a cycle of disengagement followed by re-engagement toward sensory pain words relative to other word types. In sum, this research is the first to reveal biases toward pain stimuli during very early stages of visual information processing among the highly pain-fearful and highlights the utility of EM tracking as a means to evaluate visual attention as a dynamic process in the context of FOP.
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Chronic pain is a multidimensional experience that not only includes changes in nociception, but also impairments in emotion and cognitive functions. These last 2 components are not often taken into account in preclinical research. We investigated emotional and cognitive impairments in a model of neuropathic pain in rats induced by chronic constriction injury (CCI) of the sciatic nerve. ⋯ Duloxetine and gabapentin (10mg/kg) were effective to increase the time spent in the inner zone as well as locomotor activity. No difference was observed in depressive-like behaviour (saccharin preference test) between sham-operated and CCI rats. These data suggest that cognitive rather than emotional impairments seem to be present in neuropathic CCI rats and can be reversed by duloxetine and gabapentin.