Chronic Pain and the Brain

A neurobiological look into how and why we hurt

The relative morality of pain

Think back to a time you experienced physical pain. Perhaps it was a sudden cramp, an ache that has lingered after a surgery, or stepping on your kid’s stray Lego. Pain is powerful– it can stir up emotion, elicit some unsavory words, and sometimes bring everyday life to a standstill.

However, this pain is completely internal– a monster of your own making. Pain is a sensory modality, like the more familiar five senses, that we have developed over the course of evolutionary history which likely provided survival advantages. Pain instructed our early ancestors that rest is good for a healing wound and that hot coals shouldn’t be touched.

But the truth is that perceived pain, our interpretation of a stimulus, doesn’t carry objective information about the actual danger of the stimulus; it is simply the firing of certain pain-transmitting neurons in your nervous system.

When you accidentally bang your funny bone, it can be momentarily excruciating and all-consuming. Yet in all likelihood, your survival isn’t in grave danger. This pain-danger mismatch can also be seen in paper cuts and when your feet ‘fall asleep.’

The interpreted meaning of the stimulus that results in pain is actually encoded in the intricate circuitry of your neural pain pathways. In fact, if these circuits are impaired, pain can be felt with no…