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The spino-parabrachio-amygdaloid pathway is critical for the manifestation of chronic pain

Neuropsychopharmacology (2023)Cite this article

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Pain is a complex phenomenon that elicits somatosensory and motor reflexive responses alongside enduring emotional and autonomic changes. Although pain serves as a protective mechanism to signal potential harm and encourage avoidance, it can also become persistent and pathological, disrupting regular functioning and quality of life. To effectively address chronic pain, it is imperative to increase our understanding of plasticity in the neural pathways that transmit nociceptive sensory information from peripheral nerve endings in the skin to higher-order brain areas facilitating cognition.

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Fig. 1: Proposed model of changes in the spino-parabrachio-amygdaloid pathway in the context of chronic pain.

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health awards K00NS124190 (TSN) and F32NS128392 (HNA).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Molecular Pathobiology, NYU Pain Research Center, New York University, New York, NY, 10010, USA

    Tyler S. Nelson & Heather N. Allen

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  1. Tyler S. Nelson
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  2. Heather N. Allen
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TSN wrote the manuscript with contributions from HNA. HNA created Fig. 1.

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Correspondence to Tyler S. Nelson.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Nelson, T.S., Allen, H.N. The spino-parabrachio-amygdaloid pathway is critical for the manifestation of chronic pain. Neuropsychopharmacol. (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41386-023-01745-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41386-023-01745-7

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