Pain in the Brain

doi:10.1017/9781009342919.016

Chapter 12 - Pain in the Brain

from Section III - Emotion Perception and Elicitation

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 September 2025

Jae-Joong Lee and

Choong-Wan Woo

Edited by

Jorge Armony and

Patrik Vuilleumier

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Jorge Armony: Affiliation:
McGill University, Montréal
Patrik Vuilleumier: Affiliation:
University of Geneva

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Summary

Pain is a complex experience that includes physical sensations and emotional responses. Research has shown that the central nervous system plays a significant role in how we experience pain. In this chapter, we review the current understanding of the neuroscience of pain, with a particular emphasis on pain processing in the brain. We cover early theories that emphasized the brain’s role in integrating and modulating pain, as well as modern approaches that view pain as distributed processing in the brain. We also introduce functional and computational frameworks for understanding the sensory and motivational aspects of pain and discuss various factors that contribute to the multidimensional nature of pain. The future direction of the study of pain neuroscience includes a deep sampling of subjective pain experience and the use of generative models.

Keywords

Pain brain fMRI biomarker network predictive coding reinforcement learning placebo personalized medicine

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Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge Handbook of Human Affective Neuroscience , pp. 248 - 265

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009342919.016 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2025

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