Figure 3.

(A + B) Mass-univariate fMRI results of placebo effects on pain and unpleasant touch in the bilateral insula, demonstrating both domain-general and modality-specific placebo effects. Activation maps illustrate both overlapping (pain and touch; yellow) and nonoverlapping effects of placebo analgesia on self- (A; maps in upper row; red = pain; green = touch) and other-directed (B; maps in lower row; blue = pain; beige = touch) pain and touch, respectively (thresholded at P < 0.05, small-volume-corrected in bilateral insula). (C) Mass-univariate fMRI results of placebo effects on self- and other-directed pain in the aMCC, showing largely overlapping placebo effects for self- and other-directed pain. Importantly, this contrasts with the absence of such effects on unpleasant touch in this region (no activations surviving threshold). Activation maps illustrate effects of placebo analgesia on self-directed (red) and other-directed (blue) pain (overlap in purple). Thresholded at P < 0.05, small-volume-corrected in aMCC.