Differential Classical Conditioning of the Nocebo Effect: Increasing Heat-Pain Perception without Verbal Suggestions

Background: Nocebo effects, including nocebo hyperalgesia, are a common phenomenon in clinical routine with manifold negative consequences. Both explicit expectations and learning by conditioning are known to induce nocebo effects, but the specific role of conditioning re-mains unclear, because conditioning is rarely implemented independent of verbal suggestions. Further, although pain is a multidimensional phenomenon, nocebo effects are usually...