Aim: The aim of this study was to compare the effects of cervical exercise, motor imagery (MI) and action observation (AO) of cervical exercise actions on conditioned pain modulation and pressure pain thresholds. The second objective was to assess the effects of these interventions on cervical motor activity (ranges of motion and muscle endurance), attention, and the ability to generate motor images.

Study design: Single-blinded randomized controlled trial.

Materials and methods: Fifty-four healthy subjects were randomly assigned to each group. Response conditioned pain modulation, pressure pain threshold, were the main variables. The secondary outcome measures included, cervical range of motion, Neck flexor endurance test, mental movement representation associated and psychosocial variables.

Results: All groups showed significant differences in time factor for all evaluated variables (p < .01) except pressure pain threshold over the tibial region. The post hoc analysis revealed significant within-group differences in the AE and AO groups in conditioned pain modulation (p < .05), with medium effect size in time [AE (d –0.61); AO (d –0.74)].

Conclusion: The results showed that within-group changes in conditioned pain modulation, cervical muscle endurance, and attention where founded only in the AE and AO groups. Variations in pain thresholds at pressure in the trapezium area were also obtained in the three groups. Changes in the ranges of flexion-extension and rotation movement were presented exclusively in the exercise group, and in the capacity to generate motor images only in the AO group. However, there was no difference in the pressure pain threshold over the tibial region.

目的：本研究的目的是比较颈椎运动、运动意象 (MI) 和颈椎运动动作的动作观察 (AO) 对条件性疼痛调制和压力痛阈的影响。第二个目标是评估这些干预措施对颈椎运动活动（运动范围和肌肉耐力）、注意力和生成运动图像的能力的影响。

研究设计：单盲随机对照试验。

材料和方法：每组随机分配 54 名健康受试者。反应条件疼痛调制、压力疼痛阈值是主要变量。次要结果测量包括颈椎活动度、颈部屈肌耐力测试、相关的心理运动表现和心理社会变量。

结果： 除胫骨区域的压痛阈值外，所有组的所有评估变量的时间因素均存在显着差异 ( p < .01)。的事后分析显示，在经调节的疼痛调制在AE和AO基团显著组内差异（p  <0.05），并在时间中等效应大小[AE（d -0.61）; AO ( d –0.74)]。

结论：结果显示，仅在 AE 和 AO 组中，条件性疼痛调节、颈肌耐力和注意力的组内变化。在三组中还获得了梯形区域压力下疼痛阈值的变化。屈伸和旋转运动范围的变化仅出现在运动组中，而生成运动图像的能力仅在 AO 组中出现。然而，胫骨区域的压痛阈值没有差异。