This functional magnetic resonance imaging study addressed similarities and differences in behavioral and neural responses to experimental visceral compared with somatic pain stimuli and explored the contribution of fear of pain to differences between pain modalities. In N = 22 healthy women, we assessed blood oxygen level-dependent responses to rectal distensions and cutaneous heat stimuli matched for perceived pain intensity. Fear of pain and pain unpleasantness were assessed before and after scanning. Visceral pain was more fear evoking and more unpleasant, and trial-by-trial intensity ratings failed to habituate across trials (all interactions modality × time: P < 0.01). Differences in fear of pain and pain intensity independently contributed to greater visceral pain unpleasantness (combined regression model: R(2) = 0.59). We observed joint neural activations in somatosensory cortex and frontoparietal attention network (conjunction analysis: all pFWE <0.05), but distensions induced greater activation in somatosensory cortex, dorsal and ventral anterior insula, dorsal anterior and midcingulate cortices, and brainstem, whereas cutaneous heat pain led to enhanced activation in posterior insula and hippocampus (all pFWE <0.05). Fear of visceral pain correlated with prefrontal activation, but did not consistently contribute to neural differences between modalities. These findings in healthy women support marked differences between phasic pain induced by rectal distensions vs cutaneous heat, likely reflecting the higher salience of visceral pain. More studies with clinically relevant pain models are needed to discern the role of fear in normal interindividual differences in the response to different types of pain and as a putative risk factor in the transition from acute to chronic pain.

Despite growing interest in the role of stress mediators in pain chronicity, the effects of the stress hormone cortisol on acute pain remain incompletely understood. In a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study with N = 100 healthy volunteers, we tested the effects of oral hydrocortisone (20 mg) in 2 widely used pain models for the visceral and somatic modality. Salivary cortisol was increased in the hydrocortisone group (time × group: P < 0.001). For the visceral modality, assessed using pressure-controlled rectal distensions, hydrocortisone decreased the pain threshold from before to after treatment (time × group: P = 0.011), an effect primarily driven by women (time × sex: P = 0.027). For the somatic modality, cutaneous heat pain thresholds remained unaffected by hydrocortisone. Hydrocortisone did not alter perceived pain intensity or unpleasantness of either modality. Conditioned pain-related fear in response to predictive cues was only observed for the visceral modality (time × modality: P = 0.026), an effect that was significantly reduced by hydrocortisone compared with placebo (time × group: P = 0.028). This is the first psychopharmacological study to support that acutely increased cortisol enhances pain sensitivity and impairs pain-related emotional learning within the visceral, but not the somatic pain modality. Stress-induced visceral hyperalgesia and deficits in emotional pain-related learning could play a role in the pathophysiology of chronic visceral pain.

The formation and persistence of negative pain-related expectations by classical conditioning remain incompletely understood. We elucidated behavioural and neural correlates involved in the acquisition and extinction of negative expectations towards different threats across sensory modalities. In two complementary functional magnetic resonance imaging studies in healthy humans, differential conditioning paradigms combined interoceptive visceral pain with somatic pain (study 1) and aversive tone (study 2) as exteroceptive threats. Conditioned responses to interoceptive threat predictors were enhanced in both studies, consistently involving the insula and cingulate cortex. Interoceptive threats had a greater impact on extinction efficacy, resulting in disruption of ongoing extinction (study 1), and selective resurgence of interoceptive CS-US associations after complete extinction (study 2). In the face of multiple threats, we preferentially learn, store, and remember interoceptive danger signals. As key mediators of nocebo effects, conditioned responses may be particularly relevant to clinical conditions involving disturbed interoception and chronic visceral pain.

Conditioned emotional responses to pain-predictive cues are modality specific and enhanced for the visceral modality, suggesting that pain anticipation is shaped by the salience of painful stimuli. Common but also modality-specific neural mechanisms are involved during cue-pain learning, whereas extinction of cued responses seems unaffected by modality. Future research should examine potential implications for the pathophysiology of chronic pain conditions, especially chronic visceral pain.

Structural brain alterations in chronic pain conditions remain incompletely understood, especially in chronic visceral pain. Patients with chronic-inflammatory or functional bowel disorders experience recurring abdominal pain in concert with other gastrointestinal symptoms, such as altered bowel habits, which are often exacerbated by stress. Despite growing interest in the gut-brain axis and its underlying neural mechanisms in health and disease, abnormal brain morphology and possible associations with visceral symptom severity and chronic stress remain unclear. We accomplished parallelized whole-brain voxel-based morphometry analyses in two patient cohorts with chronic visceral pain, i.e., ulcerative colitis in remission and irritable bowel syndrome, and healthy individuals. In addition to analyzing changes in gray matter volume (GMV) in each patient cohort vs. age-matched healthy controls using analysis of covariance (ANCOVA), multiple regression analyses were conducted to assess correlations between GMV and symptom severity and chronic stress, respectively. ANCOVA revealed reduced GMV in frontal cortex and anterior insula in ulcerative colitis compared to healthy controls, suggesting alterations in the central autonomic and salience networks, which could however not be confirmed in supplemental analyses which rigorously accounted for group differences in the distribution of sex. In irritable bowel syndrome, more widespread differences from healthy controls were observed, comprising both decreased and increased GMV within the sensorimotor, central executive and default mode networks. Associations between visceral symptoms and GMV within frontal regions were altered in both patient groups, supporting a role of the central executive network across visceral pain conditions. Correlations with chronic stress, on the other hand, were only found for irritable bowel syndrome, encompassing numerous brain regions and networks. Together, these findings complement and expand existing brain imaging evidence in chronic visceral pain, supporting partly distinct alterations in brain morphology in patients with chronic-inflammatory and functional bowel disorders despite considerable overlap in symptoms and comorbidities. First evidence pointing to correlations with chronic stress in irritable bowel syndrome inspires future translational studies to elucidate the mechanisms underlying the interconnections of stress, visceral pain and neural mechanisms of the gut-brain axis.