Domain-General Neural Effects of Associative Learning and Expectations on Pain and Hedonic Taste Perception

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Cognitive Science
• Psychology

Background:

• Predictive cues influence perception via associative learning.
• It remains unclear if these associative learning circuits are conserved across different sensory and affective domains.

Purpose of the Study:

• Investigate how associative learning affects perceived intensity and valence of pain and hedonic taste.
• Determine if expectancy-based modulation varies by aversiveness or sensory modality.

Main Methods:

• Sixty participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while receiving painful heat, unpleasant saline, or pleasant sucrose.
• Participants were conditioned with cues associated with low or high intensity outcomes, followed by medium intensity stimuli.
• Analyzed cue-induced modulation of subjective outcomes and brain activity using single-trial fMRI.

Main Results:

• Learned cues modulated expectations and subjective outcomes similarly across pain and taste domains.
• The orbitofrontal cortex showed domain-general anticipatory activation.
• Left anterior insula and thalamus mediated cue effects on perceived intensity and valence, respectively, overlapping with pain expectancy regions.
• Pain specificity was observed mainly with variations in stimulus intensity, not modality or aversiveness.

Conclusions:

• Shared neural circuits mediate the influence of learned expectations on perception across aversive and hedonic domains.
• The findings suggest a unified framework for how the brain constructs subjective experience through associative learning and expectation.
• Highlights overlapping neural pathways in processing sensory and affective information based on learned predictions.