Last updated: Fri, Mar 7, 2025
When we looked at the role of the spinal cord in pain processing we found that its processing helped to explain some pain phenomena, such as deep, aching pain after a twisted ankle. (Pain Science 2: Nociceptors and the Spine.) Still, we didn't find pain there. Maybe it's in the brain.
When we look at the brain we are looking at an extremely complex organ. Estimates are that 50-60% of our genes are expressed in the brain. When we compare ourselves to related species, we can see that the development of our brain has given us some quite remarkable abilities--generating speech, understanding speech, placing events along a time line, developing elaborate plans, lying, reading each others' actions and intentions.
In this section I won't try to provide a general overview of everything the brain does, but instead, I'll look at how modern pain science sees the role of the brain in processing pain. The evidence shows that pain is actually created within the brain when it detects certain patterns of signals from the body. Creation of pain, however, is just a part of the story. Pain in turn affects the body in various ways, and it affects the brain itself. Among the effects of pain on the brain are things we learn and the feelings that we have about the pain, whether they are called emotions or something similar.
Within this section...
Studying the Brain (Last updated: Mon, Jan 20, 2025)
The Brain's Architecture and its Role in Pain (Last updated: Mon, Jan 20, 2025)
Pain Phenomena Involving the Brain (Last updated: Sun, Mar 9, 2025)
Or skip to...
Pain Science 4: Partner Systems (Last updated: Fri, Mar 21, 2025)