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bioRxiv · 10.1101/2024.07.30.605866

Subjective salience ratings are a reliable proxy for physiological measures of arousal

Hadjis, G. E.·Atlas, L. Y.·Mustafa, R.·McAndrews, M. P.·Moayedi, M.
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Abstract

Pain is an inherently salient multidimensional experience that signals potential bodily threats and promotes nocifensive behaviours. Any stimulus can be salient depending on its features and context. This poses a challenge in delineating pain-specific processes in the brain, rather than salience-driven activity. It is thus essential to salience match control (innocuous) stimuli and noxious stimuli, to remove salience effects, when aiming to delineate pain-specific mechanisms. Previous studies have salience-matched either through subjective salience ratings or the skin conductance response (SCR). The construct of salience is not intuitive, and thus matching through self-report poses challenges. SCR is used as a proxy measure that captures physiological arousal, which overcomes the nebulous construct of salience. However, SCR cannot be used to salience-match in real-time (i.e., during an experiment) and assumes an association between salience and physiological arousal elicited by painful and non-painful stimuli, but this has not been explicitly tested. To determine whether salience and physiological arousal are associated, thirty-five healthy adults experienced 30 heat pain and 30 non-painful electric stimuli of varying intensities. Stimuli were subjectively matched for salience and SCR was measured to each presentation. A linear mixed model found no differences in SCR between salience-matched heat and electric stimuli. A mediation analysis showed that salience fully mediated the relationship between stimulus intensity and SCR (proportion mediated=83%). In conclusion, salience and physiological arousal are associated, and subjective salience ratings are a suitable for salience-matching pain with non-painful stimuli. Future work can thus use subjective salience ratings to delineate pain-specific processes.

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Hadjis, G. E., Atlas, L. Y., Mustafa, R., McAndrews, M. P., Moayedi, M.. 2024-07-31. Subjective salience ratings are a reliable proxy for physiological measures of arousal. https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.07.30.605866

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