Expertise Modulates Students' Perception of Pain From a Self-Perspective: Quasi-Experimental Study

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Medical Education
• Pain Perception

Background:

• Virtual reality (VR) environments can evoke pain perception.
• Brain regions associated with pain are activated by VR stimuli.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if dental education influences the neural correlates of virtual pain perception.
• To compare pain perception and brain activity between dental students and controls in a VR dental setting.

Main Methods:

• Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to study 20 dental students and 20 controls.
• Participants viewed first-person VR dental treatment videos.
• General linear model analysis and classification methods assessed neural activity and pain perception.

Main Results:

• Dental students reported less affective pain than controls, despite similar anxiety levels.
• Reduced affective pain correlated with suppressed activity in pain matrix regions (insula, anterior cingulate cortex, basal ganglia).
• Significant reductions in motor-related brain activity (supplementary motor area, premotor cortex, basal ganglia) were observed in dental students.
• Brain activity in the nucleus lentiformis distinguished dental students from controls with 85% accuracy.

Conclusions:

• Dental students exhibit suppressed affective and motor pain responses in VR dental scenarios.
• This suppression is likely learned during dental education, potentially enhancing self-efficacy.
• Neural mechanisms underlying pain perception are modulated by specialized training.