Acute Itch Induces Attentional Avoidance of Itch-related Information

Abstract

Attention is known to modulate itch intensity. In cont-rast, the reverse relationship, i.e. the degree to which the presence of an acute itch affects attention, is cur-rently not well understood. The aims of this study were to investigate whether acute itch induces an attention-al bias towards or away from visual itch-related sti-muli, and if so, whether it occurs in the early or later stages of processing. A volunteer sample of 60 healthy individuals were subjected to a skin prick (either histamine or placebo), followed by completion of a spatial cueing paradigm using itch-related and neutral words as cues, in order to obtain reaction time estimates of attentional bias. The results suggest that experience of acute itch induces attentional avoidance of visual itch threats. This attentional avoidance occurs at a later processing stage in the form of facilitated disen-gagement of attention from itch and/or delayed disen-gagement from neutral information.