Helena Hartmann and colleagues systematically reviewed 50/2060 screened studies that looked at how changing someone’s own pain experience — through substances like opioids, acetaminophen, cannabinoids, placebos, alcohol, or hypnosis — also affects how people feel and respond to others’ emotions and pain. The authors found mixed and inconsistent effects, meaning some types of pain modulation sometimes increased or decreased social cognition abilities, with the most consistent and replicated result being that placebo analgesia reduced empathy for others’ pain. However, because the studies were very different from each other and often had small sample sizes or specific study designs, a lot more work is needed to understand how our own pain influences social feelings and behavior overall. Read the full publication in the journal Pain here.