6th Annual Montana Pain Initiative Conference
How Exactly Are Nerves Plastic :
A Journey from Biopsychosocial Risk through Enhanced Neurosensitivity to Cortical Reorganization
Supplementary Handout
Some Pain Jargon
Noxious Stimulus: An actually or potentially tissue damaging event
Nociceptor: A sensory receptor that is capable of transducing and encoding noxious stimuli
Nociception: The neural processes of encoding and processing noxious stimuli
Nociceptive Neuron: A central or peripheral neuron that is capable of encoding noxious stimuli
Nociceptive Pain: Pain arising from activation of nociceptors
Neuropathic Pain: Pain arising as a direct consequence of a lesion or disease affecting the
somatosensory system
Hyperalgesia: Increased pain sensitivity
Allodynia: Pain in response to a non-nociceptive stimulus
Sensitization: Increased responsiveness of neurons to their normal input or recruitment of a response to
normally subthreshold inputs
Loeser JD, Treede RD. (2008). "The Kyoto protocol of IASP Basic Pain Terminology.". Pain 137 (3): 473–7.
Neuroplasticity: An umbrella term that refers to changes in neural pathways and synapses which are
due to changes in behavior, environment and neural processes, as well as changes resulting from bodily
injury
Pascual-Leone, A., Freitas, C., Oberman, L., Horvath, J. C., Halko, M., Eldaief, M. et al. (2011). Characterizing brain cortical plasticity and network
dynamics across the age-span in health and disease with TMS-EEG and TMS-fMRI. Brain Topography, 24, 302-315. doi 10.1007/s10548-0110196-8
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