Open AccessPsychology, Psychiatry, and Brain Neuroscience in Pain Medicine: New Tools for a New Science
Author(s) -
Wasan Ajay,
Edwards Robert R.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
pain medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.893
H-Index - 97
eISSN - 1526-4637
pISSN - 1526-2375
DOI - 10.1111/j.1526-4637.2008.00531.x
Subject(s) - clinical neuroscience , psychology , pain medicine , neuroscience , cognitive science , psychiatry , neurology , medicine , anesthesiology
The seminal roles of cognitive, emotional, and social processes in shaping the experience of pain have been appreciated, at least to some degree, for a very long time. However, it is only in the relatively recent past that tools such as functional neuroimaging have permitted investigation of the interface between such factors and the neurobiology of pain processing. As one example, consider the case of placebo effects in pain research [1,2]. It has long been recognized that the perception of pain is not dictated solely by noxious input, and that administration of inert “treatments” could have powerful analgesic effects in certain individuals, under particular conditions, though the mechanisms underlying these effects remained mysterious. Thanks to multidisciplinary research in a number of laboratories around the world, we now understand that …