Avoidance is central to chronic pain disability, yet adequate paradigms for examining pain-related avoidance are lacking. Therefore, we developed a paradigm that allows investigating how pain-related avoidance behavior is learned (acquisition), spreads to other stimuli (generalization), can be mitigated (extinction), and how it may subsequently re-emerge (spontaneous recovery).
Glogan, E., Gatzounis, R., Vandael, K., Franssen, M., Vlaeyen, J. W. S., Meulders, A. Investigating Pain-Related Avoidance Behavior using a Robotic Arm-Reaching Paradigm. J. Vis. Exp. (164), e61717, doi:10.3791/61717 (2020).