Tsukuba, Feb. 22 -- Researchers used visual threat manipulation and thermal stimulation in the virtual reality environment to investigate how the brain perceives pain. They found that the brain perceives pain more strongly when the perceived pain is out of alignment with reality. In particular, pain was amplified when unexpected events occurred.

Pain perception can vary greatly. Sometimes, we feel pain more intensely than expected due to an injury or physical ailment but may feel less intense pain in other similar instances. This variability indicates that our perception of pain is highly dependent on our expectations and uncertainty.

In this study, the mechanism underlying the perception of pain was investigated.

Two hypotheses have b...