OBJECTIVE AND METHOD Research on emotion and pain has burgeoned. We review the last decade's literature, focusing on links between emotional processes and persistent pain. RESULTS Neurobiological research documents the neural processes that distinguish affective from sensory pain dimensions, link emotion and pain, and generate central nervous system pain sensitization. Psychological research ...

Part III of this review describes the impact that acupuncture, our drug culture, and the gate-control theory have had on our progress in elucidating pain mechanisms and in treating pain syndromes. Whether an analgesis is produced by morphine, acupuncture, or electrical stimulation of an appropriate brain region, the analgesia can be blocked by naloxone, a morphine antagonist. This observation, ...

abstract   background: low back pain (lbp) is still a medical problem in 21 st century. having back pain and being disabled by it are not the same thing. it is common to come across with patients who have simple back pain but surprisingly totally disabled and vice versa. in clinical practice, it is important to have a proper evaluation of disability and making a clear distinction between pain a...

People move differently in pain. Although this statement is unquestioned, the underlying mechanisms are surprisingly poorly understood. Existing theories are relatively simplistic, and although their predictions are consistent with a range of experimental and clinical observations, there are many observations that cannot be adequately explained. New theories are required. Here, we seek to consi...

Purpose For the treatment of chronic back pain, it has been theorized that integrative care plans can lead to better outcomes than those achieved by monodisciplinary care alone, especially when using a collaborative, interdisciplinary, and non-hierarchical team approach. This paper describes the development and implementation of a care pathway designed to guide treatment by an integrative group...

This article explores dynamics of pain communication in the social media platform Tumblr. As a device of health communication, the Tumblr platform brings together a network of behaviors, technologies, and media forms through which pain experience is reimaged through and against mainstream biomedical frameworks. The article develops an interpretative approach to analyze how, as social media plat...

The gate control theory of pain proposed by Melzack and Wall in 1965 is revisited through two mechanisms of neuronal regulation: NMDA synaptic plasticity and intrinsic plasticity. The Melzack and Wall circuit was slightly modified by using strictly excitatory nociceptive afferents (in the original arrangement, nociceptive afferents were considered excitatory when they project to central transmi...

There is increasing evidence that chronic pain problems are characterised by alterations in brain structure and function. Chronic back pain is no exception. There is a growing sentiment, with accompanying theory, that these brain changes contribute to chronic back pain, although empirical support is lacking. This paper reviews the structural and functional changes of the brain that have been ob...