Nature Neuroscience
8, 1234 - 1240 (2005)
Published online: 21 August 2005; | doi:10.1038/nn1527
Opponent appetitive-aversive neural processes underlie predictive learning of pain reliefBen Seymour1, John P O'Doherty1, 2, Martin Koltzenburg3, Katja Wiech1, Richard Frackowiak1, 4, Karl Friston1
& Raymond Dolan11
Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience, 12 Queen Square, London WC1N 3BG, UK. 2
Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences 228-77, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA. 3
Institute of Child Health, University College London, 30 Guildford Street, London WC1N 1EH, UK. 4
Neuroimaging Laboratory, Fondazione Santa Lucia, Rome 00179, Italy.
Correspondence should be addressed to Ben Seymour bseymour@fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk Termination of a painful or unpleasant event can be rewarding. However, whether the brain treats relief in a similar way as it treats natural reward is unclear, and the neural processes that underlie its representation as a motivational goal remain poorly understood. We used fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) to investigate how humans learn to generate expectations of pain relief. Using a pavlovian conditioning procedure, we show that subjects experiencing prolonged experimentally induced pain can be conditioned to predict pain relief. This proceeds in a manner consistent with contemporary reward-learning theory (average reward/loss reinforcement learning), reflected by neural activity in the amygdala and midbrain. Furthermore, these reward-like learning signals are mirrored by opposite aversion-like signals in lateral orbitofrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex. This dual coding has parallels to 'opponent process' theories in psychology and promotes a formal account of prediction and expectation during pain.
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