Topic: Nociceptive processing

Engaging with nature provides numerous physical and mental health benefits, including reductions in self-reported pain. However, it remains unclear whether these reduced subjective ratings reflect modulations specific to pain, such as changes in low-level nociceptive or high-level cognitive-emotional processing or can be explained by domain-general factors unspecific to pain. To answer this question, we conducted a preregistered functional MRI experiment during which healthy participants (N = 49) received individually calibrated painful electrical shocks while exposed to audio-visual virtual n

Pain expectation is known to influence pain perception, but the underlying neuronal mechanisms remain unclear. While the motor role of the corticospinal tract is well characterized, only recently was it established that the corticospinal neurons originating from the primary somatosensory cortex (S1-CSNs) specifically contact the sensory region of the spinal cord, providing top-down regulation of sensations including pain. S1-CSNs neurons are therefore ideally positioned to modulate spinal nociception based on sensory representations and expectations. To test whether S1-CSNs activity is modulat