Supraspinal Pain Processing: Distinct Roles of Emotion and Attention

Attentional and emotional states alter the way we perceive pain. Recent findings suggest that the mechanisms underlying these two forms of pain modulation are at least partially separable. This concept is supported by the observation that attention and emotions differentially alter the sensory and affective dimensions of pain perception and apparently implicate different brain circuits. In this review, we will examine those recent findings within the broader cognitive neuroscience conceptualization of human attention and emotion and the corresponding functional neuroanatomy.