Commentary to 'do words hurt? Brain activation during the processing of pain words' by Richter et al.

摘要

Are we focussing on the right stuff when we investigate pain in chronic pain patients? This seemingly puzzling question might become more intelligible as soon as the understanding of chronic pain tries to benefit from research on anxiety disorders. Patients with pathological levels of anxiety do not only show intensified emotional reactions to feared objects or feared cognitions but are already responsive to signals for and symbols of these conditions. They appear to suffer from the fact that too many of these signals and symbols exist in their worlds and prime anxiety whereas cues for safety are too rare [3]. As a result, they scan their environment continuously for anxiety-related stimuli and switch their brain to a mode that facilitates processing of negative emotions [4].