New ‘Central Sensitisation’ page from the PPA Project

Great to see another new page, Central Sensitisation, coming out of the PPA Pain Project!

Nociception is described by IASP as the neural process of encoding noxious stimuli. Central sensitisation describes the circumstances in which there is an enhancement of the function of neurons involved in nociception [1] resulting in:

  1. hypersensitivity to stimuli[2],
  2. responsiveness to non-noxious stimuli[3],
  3. and an increased pain response evoked by stimuli outside the area of injury, an expanded receptive field[4].

central sensitisation PPA pain project

The page, by Nathan Benson, goes on to describe central versus peripheral sensitisation, features of central sensitisation, identification in the clinical setting and activity dependant sensitisation.  Thanks Nathan!!

Find out more about central sensitisation

The PPA Pain Project is a project that aims to populate the site with practical, credible and thought-provoking information on the science of pain, its assessment and management. Any one is welcome to join in this project. You will be joining people from all over the world in contributing evidence based articles to create an evidence based reference on Pain.  In return for your efforts you will receive a certificate of completion to help you evidence your learning through your involvement with this project.

Find out more about the PPA Pain Project

References

  1. Smart KM, Blake C,Staines A, Doody C. Clinical Indicators of “Nociceptive”, “peripheral neuropathic”, and “central sensitisation” as mechanisms based classifications of musculoskeletal pain. A Delphi survey of expert clinicians. Manual Therapy 2010;15:80-7
  2. Woolf CJ, Latremoliere A. Central Sensitization: A generator of pain hypersensitivity by central neural plasticity. The Journal of Pain 2009; 10(9):895-926
  3. Loeser JD, Treede RD. The Kyoto protocol of IASP basic pain terminology. Pain 2008;137: 473–7.
  4. Dhal JB, Kehlet H. Postoperative pain and its management. In:McMahon SB, Koltzenburg M, editors. Wall and Melzack’s Textbook of pain. Elsevier Churchill Livingstone;2006. p635-51.