Postulation of gate control theory (Melzack and Wall,
1965) inspired a large amount of research that studied contextual
factors of pain experience, and also declined conception
that pain perception is direct reflection of nociception.
In that time, implied mechanisms of pain modulation were
primary located in spinal cord. Cumulating results from different
studies postulate new central mechanisms. Melzack
(1999) comes to syntagme pain neuromatrix, which represents
number of anatomically functional structures of central
nervous system that directly take part in modulation of
impulses from nociceptors into experience that is reflection
of large number of factors. A number of anatomic structures
that are active in pain perception (such as ACC, prefrontal
cortex, insula) are also involved in other cognitive-emotional processes such as expectations and emotional reactions.
Therefore there is potential foundation for the influence of
different cognitive-emotional processes on transformation
of information that arrives from nociceptors, like presence
of others. Regardless the fact that results of this study did
not confirm effect of passive individual’s presence on different
measures of pain, there is still not enough data to conclude
that this factor is virtually irrelevant in the experience
of pain