Expectations and memories of pain or pain relief can influence your pain. They play an important biological role; cues that help you predict how painful something might be, influence your decisions and help you avoiding dangerous situations. For example, when you see a hot metal rod, you’ll not touch it. Every pain “treatment” has an expectation component, which is often referred to as a “non-specific” treatment effect. A trial studying individualized treatment programs with over 2000 chronic pain patients found that patient’s expectation of improvement was the strongest predictor of pain relief. Understanding the neurobiology of “non-specific effects” and their influence on pain transmission may help improving current treatments for chronic pain