Pain and the Sickness Response


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The immune system can create the sickness response either in response to infection or to inflammation.

Note Text: 678 Hyperalgesia and sickness behavior

The sickness response to injury or infection has classically been viewed as consisting of fever, activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, anorexia, inhibition of exploratory behavior, and increased sleep. Nociceptive responses are also altered as part of the sickness response. Thus, systemic administrati....

McMahon, S. B., Koltzenberg, M., Tracy, I., and Turk, D. C., "Wall and Melzack's Textbook of Pain", Elsevier Saunders, 2013, 140

Note Text: 797 Central representation of state

Perception of interoceptive sensations, including pain, feeling of emotions, and autonomic, endocrine, and somatomotor responses, is coordinated and therefore consists of parallel "readouts" of the central representations. The central representations in turn obtain continuous afferent neural, hormonal, and immune signa....

McMahon, S. B., Koltzenberg, M., Tracy, I., and Turk, D. C., "Wall and Melzack's Textbook of Pain", Elsevier Saunders, 2013, 198

Note Text: 796 Autonomic/endocrine/immune overview

Pain is a warning signal not only for local tissue or nerve injury but also as an indicator of systemic illness. Signaling by the autonomic, endocrine, and immune systems, coordinated by central neural circuits, produces changes perceived as pain, and dysregulation of these bidirectional signaling pathways may contribu....

McMahon, S. B., Koltzenberg, M., Tracy, I., and Turk, D. C., "Wall and Melzack's Textbook of Pain", Elsevier Saunders, 2013, 198

Note Text: 807 Communication via cytokine

Communication betwen the peripheral (innate) immune system and central neurons by way of cytokines occurs via circumventricular organs (e.g., the organum vasculosum of the lamina terminalis, the subfornical organ or the median eminence in the hypothalamus, or the area postrema in the lower brain stem), via saturable tra....

McMahon, S. B., Koltzenberg, M., Tracy, I., and Turk, D. C., "Wall and Melzack's Textbook of Pain", Elsevier Saunders, 2013, 202

Note Text: 802 Homeostasis and allostasis

Maintenance of physiological parameters such as the concentration of ions, blood glucose, arterial blood gases, body core temperature, and others in a narrow range is called homeostasis. Homeostatic regulation involves the autonomic, endocrine, and respiratory systems. The concept of homeostasis was formulated by Walt....

McMahon, S. B., Koltzenberg, M., Tracy, I., and Turk, D. C., "Wall and Melzack's Textbook of Pain", Elsevier Saunders, 2013, 200

Note Text: 805 Sickness behavior, etc.

This sickness behavior consists of immobility, decreased social interaction, decrease in food intake, formation of a taste aversion to novel foods, decrease in digestion, loss of weight (anorexia), fever, increase in sleep, change in endocrine functions (activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis), cognitive....

McMahon, S. B., Koltzenberg, M., Tracy, I., and Turk, D. C., "Wall and Melzack's Textbook of Pain", Elsevier Saunders, 2013, 201

Note Text: 814 Synopsis immuno-sympatho-nociceptive systems

The brain is required in this process because many of the component processes that operate in controlling infection, inflammation, and injury are either behavioral or physiological adjustments that are mediated by the CNS....Activation of immune-competent cells by microbes is signalled to the brain and results in physio....

McMahon, S. B., Koltzenberg, M., Tracy, I., and Turk, D. C., "Wall and Melzack's Textbook of Pain", Elsevier Saunders, 2013, 209-10

Note Text: 815 Synopsis immuno-sympatho-nociceptive systems

Regulation of pain and hyperalgesia is an integral component of the fast defense system (fight and flight) and the slow (recuperative) defense system. During fast defense, organized by the hypothalamic-mesencephalic system, fast analgesia, mobilization of energy, activation of various sympathetic channels (including th....

McMahon, S. B., Koltzenberg, M., Tracy, I., and Turk, D. C., "Wall and Melzack's Textbook of Pain", Elsevier Saunders, 2013, 210

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Pain and the Illness Response (This page is incomplete.)

Inflammation and Illness (Last updated: Tue, Mar 11, 2025)

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Pain Measurement (Last updated: Sun, Jul 28, 2024)