Last updated: Sun, Mar 9, 2025
Central pain is a condition of severe pain that is caused by lesions (injuries such as tumor or stroke damage) in the nervous tissues of the pain network. Lesions along the pathway from the STT to the posterior insular cortex sometimes cause analgesia, but in about half the cases they cause central pain. The pain occurs without any external stimulation. It is believed that central pain is caused by changes in the interactions between the various centers involved in the pain matrix. The mechanism that allows cooling to suppress pain is suspected, because the pain is often felt in a region of the body in which thermal sensing is abnormal.