Lecture 1 Flashcards
Three types of pain
- nociceptive
- neuropathic
- nociplastic
what is pain
an unpleasant sensory and/or emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage
adaptive role of pain
pain is a mainly protective mechanism for the body as it causes an individual to react and remove the pain stimulus
dimensions of pain
- sensory discriminative
- motivational affective
- cognitive evaluative
nociceptive pain
pain from a normal process that results in noxious stimuli being perceived as painful
neuropathic pain
pain that results as a direct consequence of a lesion or disease affecting abnormal functioning of the peripheral nervous system (PNS) or central nervous system (CNS)
nociplastic pain
pain that arises from altered nociception despite no clear evidence of actual or threatened tissue damage causing the activation of peripheral nociceptors or evidence for disease or lesion of the somatosensory system causing the pain
three types of nociceptors
mechanical, thermal, chemical
thermal nociceptors
respond to temperature extremes, especially heat
mechanical nociceptors
Respond to mechanical damage such as cutting, crushing, or pinching
chemical nociceptors
selective responses to histamine and other chemicals
silent nociceptors
Pain receptors located within visceral organs that do not usually activate pain sensations by themselves but synapse onto the same 2nd order pain fibers in the spinal cord as peripheral nociceptors and facilitate the 2nd order neuron, causing increased sensitivity to peripheral stimuli.
polymodal nociceptors
respond to mechanical, thermal, and chemical stimuli
body regions without nociceptors
brain tissue, bone, interstitial tissue of the kidney, liver, and lungs
basic process of pain
- free nerve endings in tissues detect painful stimulus
- peripheral nerves send this signal
- reaches the dorsal horn of the spinal cord
- spinal cord pathway relays this information
- brain centers receive this information
free nerve endings
respond to pain and temperature
free nerve endings are nociceptors
due to the coating of ion channels that detect the presence of noxious stimuli
TRP Channels
transient receptor potential channels
transient receptor potential channels
painful heat or painful cold stimulates a whole different set of channels to open in the membrane called
TRPM8
cold sensor, menthol receptor
TRPV1
capsaicin receptor
mediator of capsaicin
TRPV1 mediates the pain-producing actions
- also activated by noxious heat stimuli
- suggests that it is normally transduces the sensation of painful heat
mishra et al., 2011
found that various strategies to eliminate TRPV1-expressing neurons in mice resulted in almost complete absence of heat nociception
caterina et al., 2000
In contrast to Mishra et al., genetic ablation of TRPV1 caused only minor deficits in acute noxious heat sensing
- implying that heat‐sensitive nociceptors must express additional TRPV1‐independent heat‐sensing mechanisms.
vriens and voets (2019)
identified 3 TRP ion channels
vandewauw et al., 2018
The involvement of three heat sensing TRP channels with overlapping expression in nociceptor neurons represents a powerful mechanism that ensures avoidance of noxious heat, even under conditions where the function of one or two heat sensors is comprised