Pain: Moving from Symptom Control toward Mechanism-Specific Pharmacologic Management (2004)

Reviews16 March 2004Pain: Moving from Symptom Control toward Mechanism-Specific Pharmacologic ManagementClifford J. Woolf, MDClifford J. Woolf, MDFrom Neural Plasticity Research Group, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, Massachusetts.Search for more papers by this authorAuthor, Article, and Disclosure Informationhttps://doi.org/10.7326/0003-4819-140-8-200404200-00010 SectionsAboutFull TextPDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissions ShareFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail Clinical PrinciplesNociceptive pain: transient pain in response to a noxious stimulus.Inflammatory pain: spontaneous pain and hypersensitivity to pain in response to tissue damage and inflammation.Neuropathis pain: spontaneous pain and hypersensitivity to pain in association with damage to or a lesion of the nervous system.Functional pain: hypersensitivity to pain resulting from abnormal central processing of normal input.Physiologic PrinciplesNociceptionPeripheral sensitizationPhenotype switchCentral sensitizationNeuron glial interactionIncreased facilitationStructural reorganizationDecreased inhibitionPain is a multidimensional sensory experience that is intrinsically unpleasant and associated with hurting and soreness. 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[PMID: 9106805] CrossrefMedlineGoogle Scholar Author, Article, and Disclosure InformationAuthors: Clifford J. Woolf, MDAffiliations: From Neural Plasticity Research Group, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, Massachusetts.Disclosures: None disclosed.Corresponding Author: Clifford J. Woolf, MD, Neural Plasticity Research Group, Department of Anesthesia and Critical Care, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, 149 13th Street, Room 4309, Charlestown, MA 02129; e-mail, [email protected]org. 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