Investigations of neural processes underlying normal pain perception, its regulation, and alterations in aberrant pain conditions

Pain is the most common reason for a person to seek medical care. It serves an important role of motivating us to avoid injuries and to protect injuries while they heal. Pain can also have devastating effects in chronic pain conditions when it may be disproportionate to an injury or occurs in the absence of a known cause, or persists long after an injury has healed. Yet, in spite of the importance of pain the underlying neural signaling is poorly understood. Early electrophysiological studies in the brainstem and spinal cord identified the importance of descending regulation of nociceptive responses in the spinal cord, and their influence on pain. This research led to the discovery of brainstem regions that contribute to descending regulation of responses to nociceptive signaling in the spinal cord. Research has been further advanced by the development of functional neuroimaging, such as fMRI, but the focus of early pain research with fMRI shifted to the cortex due to the technical challenges of imaging the brainstem/cord. While these studies have advanced our understanding of pain, our current understanding of the neural basis of pain, how it varies in healthy individuals, the factors that influence it, and how it is altered in chronic pain states, remains limited.

The scope of this research topic is original research articles and reviews focused on any aspects of neural signaling involved with pain perception, individual differences in pain, pain regulation in healthy and disease states, or altered pain processing in acute or chronic pain conditions. The topic includes human studies and animal models, and methods including neuroimaging and/or electrophysiology to provide information about neural signaling, including methods development or assessments or comparisons of methods.


We encourage the submission of original research reports, methods articles, perspectives, reviews and mini reviews in the following (but not limited to) topics:

-Functional magnetic resonance imaging in the brain, brainstem, and/or spinal cord
- Influence of cognitive, emotional, or autonomic factors on pain responses
- Influence of sex, gender, age, or health conditions on pain responses
- Altered pain processing in chronic pain conditions
- Contributions of neuroimaging methods to the assessment of pain, or diagnosis of pain conditions
- Assessments of methods and development of new methods, or aspects of methods to adapt neuroimaging approaches to the challenges of studying the neural basis of pain processing