Back pain is common in the general population, but only a subgroup of back pain patients
develops a disabling chronic pain state. The reasons for this are incompletely understood …

Background: Over the last decades, remarkable progresses have been accomplished
regarding the understanding of the neurophysiologic and neuropharmacological bases of …

Chronic low back pain (cLBP) is a prevalent disorder. A growing body of evidence linking
the pathology of the reward network to chronic pain suggests that pain sensitization may …

Recent insights have demonstrated a central role for dopaminergic neurotransmission in
modulating pain perception and natural analgesia within supraspinal regions, including the …

Abstract See Tracey (doi: 10.1093/brain/aww147) for a scientific commentary on this article.
Mechanisms of chronic pain remain poorly understood. We tracked brain properties in …

Depression symptoms are often found in patients suffering from chronic pain, a
phenomenon that is yet to be understood mechanistically. Here, we systematically …

The absence of consistent end organ abnormalities in many chronic pain syndromes has led
to a search for maladaptive CNS mechanisms that may explain their clinical presentations …

Pain perception can be powerfully influenced by an individual's expectations and beliefs.
Although the cortical circuitry responsible for pain modulation has been thoroughly …

The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) is a brain region involved in the affective components
of pain and undergoes plasticity during the development of chronic pain. Dopamine (DA) is …

Comorbidity of chronic pain and depression has long been recognized in the clinic, and
preclinical studies have reported depression-like behaviors in animal models of chronic …