Precision functional mapping of imagined and experienced pain
Abstract
Imagination is a principal human capacity, enabling simulation of sensations and situations for planning, learning, and empathy. We examined neural representations of experienced and imagined pain across eight body sites using deep-phenotyping, precision functional MRI with over seven hours of scanning per participant (N = 9). Here we show, using conventional mapping, pattern classification, and representational similarity analyses, that both imagined and experienced pain activated nociceptive regions (e.g., dorsoposterior insula) and non-nociceptive regions (e.g., premotor areas and inferior inter-effector motor cortex). However, imagined pain did not reliably reactivate body site-selective nociceptive patterns in any region. Instead, imagined and experienced pain shared multivariate representations across widespread cortical and subcortical regions, particularly transmodal cortical areas including dorsomedial and lateral prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, and thalamus. These findings suggest that imagination generates distributed pain-like activity, but with separable neural codes for imagined and experienced pain. This distinction may explain the difficulty of vividly imagining pain and clarify its potential roles in empathy, planning, and pain chronification.
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BibTeX
@article{sun2026precision,
title = {{Precision functional mapping of imagined and experienced pain}},
author = {Michael Sun and Bogdan Petre and Ke Bo and Carmen I. Bango and Malka Hershkop and Sydney L. Shohan and Heejung Jung and Tor D. Wager},
journal = {Nature Communications},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1038/s41467-026-78186-5},
url = {https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-78186-5},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Precision functional mapping of imagined and experienced pain
AU - Michael Sun
AU - Bogdan Petre
AU - Ke Bo
AU - Carmen I. Bango
AU - Malka Hershkop
AU - Sydney L. Shohan
AU - Heejung Jung
AU - Tor D. Wager
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/12
JO - Nature Communications
DO - 10.1038/s41467-026-78186-5
UR - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-78186-5
AB - Imagination is a principal human capacity, enabling simulation of sensations and situations for planning, learning, and empathy. We examined neural representations of experienced and imagined pain across eight body sites using deep-phenotyping, precision functional MRI with over seven hours of scanning per participant (N = 9). Here we show, using conventional mapping, pattern classification, and representational similarity analyses, that both imagined and experienced pain activated nociceptive regions (e.g., dorsoposterior insula) and non-nociceptive regions (e.g., premotor areas and inferior inter-effector motor cortex). However, imagined pain did not reliably reactivate body site-selective nociceptive patterns in any region. Instead, imagined and experienced pain shared multivariate representations across widespread cortical and subcortical regions, particularly transmodal cortical areas including dorsomedial and lateral prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, and thalamus. These findings suggest that imagination generates distributed pain-like activity, but with separable neural codes for imagined and experienced pain. This distinction may explain the difficulty of vividly imagining pain and clarify its potential roles in empathy, planning, and pain chronification.
SN - 2041-1723
ER -