Abstract
Over the last decade increases number of young adults and adolescents with self injurious behavior (SIB) as well as with decorative tattoo, piercing, scarification or branding. All these procedures are related with painful experience, however contrary to patients with SIB which do not report pain during SIB there are no information about pain perception in visitors of tattoo and piercing studios.
Aim of our study was to compare nociceptive sensitivity in three group of subjects (n = 56, age 22-28 years, 27 women and 29 men) with different motivation to pain experience. Control group with single painful experience during tattooing had lower thermal pain threshold than two other groups either with repeated painful experience where the pain itself was rewarding stimulus or with active motivation to share feelings of the second group.
Last two groups were measured on the Hell party which was organized by tattoo and piercing studio. Increased pain threshold in active participants of Hell party cannot be simply explained by decreased sensory-discriminative component of pain.
The group without any body modification measured at the same party did not differ in pain perception from the former group. From these results it can be concluded that environmental factors influencing affective and cognitive component of pain played principal role