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We find that these expectations directly modulate the perception of pain in the thermal grill illusion. Quantitative microstructural brain imaging further revealed that individual variability in computational parameters related to uncertainty-driven learning and decision-making is reflected in the microstructure of brain regions such as the precuneus, posterior cingulate gyrus, cerebellum, as well as basal ganglia and brainstem. These findings provide a framework to understand how the brain infers pain from innocuous thermal inputs, with important implications for the etiology of thermosensory symptoms under chronic pain conditions.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1126\/sciadv.adq0261","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,3,12]],"date-time":"2025-03-12T13:58:57Z","timestamp":1741787937000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.34133\/aaas_crossmark","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":14,"title":["Thermosensory predictive coding underpins an illusion of pain"],"prefix":"10.1126","volume":"11","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-5395-309X","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Jesper Fischer","family":"Ehmsen","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience (CFIN), Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University, Aarhus, 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