OBJECTIVES: This study investigated attentional biases for pictorial headache-related stimuli in individuals with chronic headache and healthy controls. METHODS: Attentional bias was assessed using a visual probe task that presented headache-related images and neutral images at 2 exposure duration conditions, 500 and 1250 ms. RESULTS: The results indicated that individuals with chronic daily headache showed a significantly greater overall attentional bias across presentation times toward headache-related stimuli compared with the controls, which indicates a bias in both initial orienting and maintained attention to pain cues in this group. DISCUSSION: It is concluded that both hypervigilance and sustained processing are critical factors for the maintenance of chronic pain.
OBJECTIVES: This study investigated attentional biases for pictorial headache-related stimuli in individuals with chronic headache and healthy controls. METHODS: Attentional bias was assessed using a visual probe task that presented headache-related images and neutral images at 2 exposure duration conditions, 500 and 1250 ms. RESULTS: The results indicated that individuals with chronic daily headache showed a significantly greater overall attentional bias across presentation times toward headache-related stimuli compared with the controls, which indicates a bias in both initial orienting and maintained attention to pain cues in this group. DISCUSSION: It is concluded that both hypervigilance and sustained processing are critical factors for the maintenance of chronic pain.
Authors: Charles Brandt; Michael J Zvolensky; Steven P Woods; Adam Gonzalez; Steven A Safren; Conall M O'Cleirigh Journal: Clin Psychol Rev Date: 2016-11-17