ABSTRACT
Objective To investigate the effect of tonic pain stimulation on the attention network test (ANT) . Methods Twenty healthy males recruited from university were enrolled in this study, and laboratory pain was induced by cuff pressure stimulation on the upper arm. All subjects performed the task separately under pain, no-pain and pressure conditions. The reaction time and accuracy rate of the ANT were quantified. The subjective pain perception was assessed by the short-form McGill Pain Questionnaire ( SF-MPQ) . Results Across three conditions, the executive network showed significant pain effect (F = 76.31 , P< 0.001) : no-pain condition at (92.51 ±35.71 )ms, pressure condition at (94.06 ±25. 28) ms, pain condition at ( 120.24 ± 18.21 )ms. Furthermore, the average reaction time and the A-scores (i. e. affective words) in SF-MPQ caused by pain was positively correlated ( r = 0.11, P = 0.03) . Conclusion Pain can result in deficit in the executive network for attention regulation. The negative affections caused by pain can interfere with attention.