IT TAKES A VILLAGE: Glia (cyan) in the central nervous system are normally considered support for neurons, but research is revealing how these cells can contribute to the aberrant firing of pain pathways. (Rat hippocampus shown here. Neurofilaments in green; DNA in yellow.)TOM DEERINCK, NATIONAL CENTER FOR MICROSCOPY AND IMAGING RESEARCH
When someone is asked to think about pain, he or she will typically envision a graphic wound or a limb bent at an unnatural angle. However, chronic pain, more technically known as persistent pain, is a different beast altogether. In fact, some would say that the only thing that acute and persistent pain have in common is the word “pain.” The biological mechanisms that create and sustain the two conditions are very different.
Pain is typically thought of as the behavioral and emotional results of the transmission of a neuronal signal, and indeed, acute pain, or nociception, results from the activation of peripheral neurons and the transmission of this signal along a connected series of so-called somatosensory neurons up the spinal cord and into the ...
