It has previously been suggested that the activity in sensory regions of the brain can be
modulated by attentional mechanisms during parallel cognitive processing. To investigate
whether such attention-related modulations are present in the processing of pain, the
regional cerebral blood flow was measured using [15O] butanol and positron emission
tomography in conditions involving both pain and parallel cognitive demands. The painful
stimulus consisted of the standard cold pressor test and the cognitive task was a …