ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: Pain is a cognitive evaluation. Its appearance in the new functional image systems is promising. Nocioceptive pain, usually acute or persistent, is useful to prevent animals from getting injured. DISCUSSION: Chronic pain is disease per se: It is due to a sensitisation phenomena and pain memory with an important relationship with emotions. Neuropathic pain is a neurological symptom due to a somatosensorial system dysfunction. In this case, axonal ectopic generation of impulses and synaptic hyperexcitability occurs. In persistent cases, sensitisation phenomenon and memory of pain appear together with neuropathic pain. CONCLUSIONS: Pain treatment should be physiopathologicaly orientated. Pain units, specialized in analgesic treatment and some invasive techniques, are usually competent in the treatment of nocioceptive pain. Neuropathic pain should have a neurologic diagnosis and treatment. But neurologist need to be more and more interested in the chronic pain related with memory and sensitisation: better knowledge of the cerebral mechanisms in this phenomenon can add to this pathology in our field.
Subject(s)
Memory/physiology , Pain/diagnosis , Pain/physiopathology , Analgesics/therapeutic use , Animals , Humans , Pain/classification , Pain Management , Pain ThresholdABSTRACT
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