Placebo analgesia is often conceptualized as a reward mechanism. However, by targeting only negative experiences, such as pain, placebo research may tell only half the story. We compared placebo improvement of painful touch (analgesia) with placebo improvement of pleasant touch (hyperhedonia) using functional MRI and a crossover design. Somatosensory processing was decreased during placebo anal...

BACKGROUND Most of our knowledge about similarities in the neural processing of painful and pleasant sensations in the brain derives from studying each phenomenon separately. Patients often feel pain induced by acupuncture, which is noxious stimulation having the symbolic message of the cure, as pleasant. OBJECTIVES We investigated whether the double-blind acupuncture needles are potential to...

Acetaldehyde (ACD), the first metabolite of ethanol (EtOH), has been implicated in several actions of alcohol, including its reinforcing effects. Previously considered an aversive compound, ACD was useful in alcoholic's pharmacological treatment aimed at discouraging alcohol drinking. However, it has recently been shown that EtOH-derived ACD is necessary for EtOH-induced place preference and se...

Sensation and behavior are linked dimensions in human lives. Experiencing a gentle caress from a loved one is very different than getting our hand burnt on a hot stove. However both those stimuli are signaled in small diameter cutaneous afferents and have an inherent affective valence that modulates our actions. Pain is transmitted by thinly myelinated A! fibers and unmyelinated C fibers, and a...

UNLABELLED Pain catastrophizing is associated with enhanced pain and pain-related outcomes. Unfortunately, the mechanisms underlying the catastrophizing-pain relationship are poorly understood. Given evidence suggesting significant relationships among catastrophizing, emotion, and pain, it is possible that catastrophizing may alter nociception and pain through affective processes. Research has ...

the term reflex epilepsy in reserved for a small subgroup o seizures that occur regularly in response to specific stimuli. our patient is a 20- year old male, who had pleasure, euphoria, loss of conciousness and generalized tonic- clonic convulstion when he watched tv since ten years. during puberty the patient that self-induced reflex epilepsy with photic stimulation, when watching tv or looki...