Loughborough University

Solution

We identified that the core challenge was shifting a deeply held belief that pain always means damage. Next, was how to visualise and demonstrate pain illusion activities Roger and the team developed to demonstrate brain signals that don’t match reality. The Pain Illusions Toolkit uses simple activities people can do at home to demonstrate that the brain sometimes gets it wrong, like making your hands appear to melt, or convincing you that you have an extra finger. If the brain can be tricked about something as basic as how many fingers you have, it can also be overestimating how much danger your body is in.

Each of the three animations leads with validation of the viewer’s experience before introducing the science, and focuses on what people can do rather than what’s “wrong” with their brain.

We chose animation to make brain processes tangible and understandable, respect the audience who may be fatigued, in pain, or dealing with brain fog, and bring the illusions to life and demonstrate the neuroscience behind them. This opened up a broader conversation about how the brain’s body signals affect people far beyond chronic pain, like body dysmorphia.

Each animation was co-designed with the research team to ensure scientific accuracy while maintaining the emotional tone that makes the content land. The result is three 3-minute animations that break pain neuroscience into concepts people can absorb, believe, and apply in their everyday lives through pain illusions.