TOR WAGER

EXPECTATION, CONTEXT, AND PAIN

Tor Wager's work is central to expectation, placebo, context, neural signatures, and cognitive modulation. Do not reduce pain to cognition.

Noxious stimulus + expectation + context + learning → subjective pain.

Expectation-based modulation includes placebo and nocebo. Placebo is not “fake pain relief”: expectation and learning can produce real changes in pain experience and neural processing. Not all contextual modulation is placebo.

Context is biologically active. Meaning, expectation, social setting, symbol, authority, and preparation may participate in shaping pain. Ritual should not be reduced to placebo.

Removal audit: without Wager, the Brain loses the bridge between context, learning, expectation, and biologically real changes in pain.