title: Mechanisms of central pain.
abstract: Central pain is common in patients with stroke, multiple sclerosis, syringomyelia, and spinal cord injury. It frequently develops after a delay of weeks or months, is associated with sensory change involving the spinothalamic pathways, and has a poor prognosis for spontaneous remission. Hypotheses to explain the varied clinical manifestations can be divided in two categories: those stressing aberrant neural activity in the deafferented circuits and those focusing on the postlesion imbalance between facilitatory and inhibitory neural pathways. All models inherently assume a degree of specialization of cerebral structures in pain processing, which has not been proved conclusively.
authors.affiliation: Pain Research Institute, University Department of Neurological Science, The Walton Centre for Neurology and Neurosurgery NHS Trust, Liverpool, England. tjn@liv.ac.uk
authors.forename: T J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Nurmikko
mesh_terms: D002493:Central Nervous System Diseases / Q000150:complications* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006801:Humans; D010146:Pain / Q000209:etiology* / Q000503:physiopathology*