EXPERIMENTAL INDUCTION OF PAIN - UTILITY IN THE STUDY OF CLINICAL PAIN

Experimental pain methods have been used historically to examine sensory and perceptual mechanisms of pain report and response, generally in healthy populations. However, recent research points to the utility of these methods to investigate a variety of questions related to clinical pain. In this paper, experimental pain induction and measurement are briefly overviewed to provide readers with some background in these techniques. The utility of experimental pain induction techniques are overviewed with respect to three important emerging areas of clinical pain research: a) extending our understanding of the mechanisms of pain report and response, b) assessment and prediction of pain report and response, and c) the use of experimental pain as a vehicle to train pain coping skills and to evaluate their effectiveness in cognitive behavioral treatment. In addition, the unique contribution of each empirical paper in this special series is highlighted with respect to these three emerging areas.