Central Processing of Pain

• Central Processing of Pain:

  • the processing of pain is split into 2 distinct systems:
  • lateral nociceptive system
  • medial nociceptive system

  A) medial nociceptive system

  B) lateral nociceptive system

  
• Central Processing of Pain - lateral nociceptive system:

  • nociceptive information comes up the spinothalamic tract to the thalamus and is relayed to the somatosensory cortex and the basal ganglia
  • thought that this circuit is largely involved in those sensory discriminative aspects of pain and in formulating simple motor response to the nociceptive information

  A) lateral nociceptive system

  
• Central Processing of Pain - medial nociceptive system:

  • involves the brain stem, grey matter, insular cortex, amygdala, prefrontal cortex, cingulate cortex
  • more involved in processing attention, affects and cognitive aspects of pain and memory related aspects of pain and selection of more complex responses to the pain

  A) medial nociceptive system