Skip to main content

Table 1 Explanation of pain terminology

From: The transition from acute to chronic pain: might intensive care unit patients be at risk?

Acute pain

Intensely discomforting, distressful, or agonizing sensation associated with trauma or disease, with well-defined location, character, and timing [20]). Year introduced: 2012.

Allodynia

Pain due to a stimulus that does not normally provoke pain [20].

Central sensitization

Increased responsiveness of nociceptive neurons in the central nervous system to their normal or subthreshold afferent input [20].

Chronic pain

Pain that continues or recurs over a prolonged period, caused by various diseases or abnormal conditions [28].

Hyperalgesia

Increased pain from a stimulus that normally provokes pain [20].

Hypersensitivity or hyperesthesia

Increased sensitivity to stimulation, excluding the senses [20].

Long-term potentiation (LTP)

A long-lasting strengthening of the response of a postsynaptic nerve cell to stimulation across the synapse that occurs with repeated stimulation and is thought to be related to learning and long-term memory [29].

Modulation

The inhibition or facilitation of pain [30].

Neuropathic pain

Pain caused by a lesion or disease of the somatosensory nervous system [20].

Pain affect

Feeling or emotion related to pain, especially as manifested by facial expression or body language [31].

Pain sensation

An unpleasant sensory experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage [20].

Peripheral sensitization

Increased responsiveness and reduced threshold of nociceptive neurons in the periphery to the stimulation of their receptive fields [32].

Sensitization

An increased response to stimulation that is mediated by amplification of signaling [32].

Supraspinal

Situated above the vertebral column [31].

Synaptic plasticity

The ability of the connection, or synapse, between two neurons to change in strength in response to use or disuse of transmission over synaptic pathways [33].