A01 A02 A03 A04 A05 A06 A07 A09 A10 A11 A12 A13 A14 A18 A19 A21 F01 F02 INF

A11 – Appetitive and aversive pain-related learning in health and chronic back pain

Ulrike Bingel, Katarina Forkmann

Project A11 will investigate neural and behavioral mechanisms underlying the acquisition, extinction and reinstatement of pain-related fear in the context of somatic pain. We will compare patients suffering from chronic low back pain to healthy controls using a differential fear conditioning paradigm with painful heat as unconditioned stimuli (US) while collecting behavioral, physiological, neuroendocrine and neural data (MRI). The planned studies will examine (1) pain-specific aspects of fear conditioning, (2) the effects of pharmacologically induced stress on extinction recall and reinstatement and (3) neural common and distinct neural mechanisms underlying appetitive and aversive conditioning in the context of somatic pain.

Guiding questions of A11:

  • Do behavioral and neural mechanisms of acquisition, extinction and reinstatement of CS-US associations differ between somatic pain stimuli and equally aversive auditory stimuli? Are these pain-specific effects enhanced in chronic low back pain patients?
  • Does the systemic application of the glucocorticoid hydrocortisone impair the memory for extinguished fear of pain? Is this effect augmented in patients suffering from chronic low back pain?
  • Do learning and extinction mechanisms differ between cues predicting pain relief and cues predicting pain exacerbation? What are the commonalities and distinctions between aversive and appetitive learning in the context of pain?
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Ulrike Bingel

Projektleiterin A11

Universität Duisburg-Essen

Katharina Schmidt

Postdoc A11

Universität Duisburg-Essen

Frederik Schlitt

Doktorand A11

Universität Duisburg-Essen

Jaspreet Kaur

Doktorandin A11

Universität Duisburg-Essen

Lea Busch

Doktorandin A11

Universität Duisburg-Essen

10 project-relevant publications

Claassen J, Koenen LR, Ernst TM, Labrenz F, Theysohn N, Forsting M, Bingel U, Timmann D, Elsenbruch S (2020) Cerebellum is more concerned about visceral than somatic pain. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 91(2): 218–219.

Eippert F, Bingel U, Schoell E, Yacubian J, Büchel C (2008) Blockade of endogenous opioid neurotransmission enhances acquisition of conditioned fear in humans. J Neurosci. 28(21): 5465–5472.

Ernst TM, Brol AE, Gratz M, Ritter C, Bingel U, Schlamann M, Maderwald S, Quick HH, Merz CJ, Timmann D (2019) The cerebellum is involved in processing of predictions and prediction errors in a fear conditioning paradigm. eLife. 8.

Forkmann K, Wiech K, Ritter C, Sommer T, Rose M, Bingel U (2013) Pain-specific modulation of hippocampal activity and functional connectivity during visual encoding. J Neurosci. 33(6): 2571–2581.

Forkmann K, Wiech K, Sommer T, Bingel U (2015) Reinstatement of pain-related brain activation during the recognition of neutral images previously paired with nociceptive stimuli. Pain. 156(8): 1501–1510.

Koenen LR, Icenhour A, Forkmann K, Theysohn N, Forsting M, Bingel U, Elsenbruch S (2018) From Anticipation to the Experience of Pain: The Importance of Visceral Versus Somatic Pain Modality in Neural and Behavioral Responses to Pain-Predictive Cues. Psychosom Med. 80(9): 826–835.

Schmidt K, Forkmann K, Sinke C, Gratz M, Bitz A, Bingel U (2016) The differential effect of trigeminal vs. peripheral pain stimulation on visual processing and memory encoding is influenced by pain-related fear. NeuroImage. 134: 386–395.

Schmidt K, Forkmann K, Elsenbruch S, Bingel U (2020) Enhanced pain-related conditioning for face compared to hand pain. PLoS One. 15(6): e0234160.

Schmidt K, Forkmann K, Schultz H, Gratz M, Bitz A, Wiech K, Bingel U (2019) Enhanced Neural Reinstatement for Evoked Facial Pain Compared With Evoked Hand Pain. J Pain. 20(9): 1057–1069.

Spisák T, Kincses B, Schlitt F, Zunhammer M, Schmidt-Wilcke T, Kincses ZT, Bingel U (2020) Pain-free resting-state functional brain connectivity predicts individual pain sensitivity. Nat Commun. 11(1): 187.