Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 24, 2025

Dynamic Quantitative Sensory Testing to Characterize Central Pain Processing
Published on: February 16, 2017
Analgesia for the Bayesian Brain: How Predictive Coding Offers Insights Into the Subjectivity of Pain
Friedrich E Lersch1, Fabienne C S Frickmann2, Richard D Urman3
1Department of Anaesthesiology and Pain Medicine, Cantonal Hospital of St. Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland. friedrich.lersch@insel.ch.
Purpose Of Review:
In order to better treat pain, we must understand its architecture and pathways. Many modulatory approaches of pain management strategies are only poorly understood. This review aims to provide a theoretical framework of pain perception and modulation in order to assist in clinical understanding and research of analgesia and anesthesia.
Recent Findings:
Limitations of traditional models for pain have driven the application of new data analysis models. The Bayesian principle of predictive coding has found increasing application in neuroscientific research, providing a promising theoretical background for the principles of consciousness and perception. It can be applied to the subjective perception of pain. Pain perception can be viewed as a continuous hierarchical process of bottom-up sensory inputs colliding with top-down modulations and prior experiences, involving multiple cortical and subcortical hubs of the pain matrix. Predictive coding provides a mathematical model for this interplay.
Related Concept Videos
Pain
Nociception
Analgesia and Pain Management
Blood and Nerve Supply to the Bones
Nutrient Artery
The nutrient artery is the main blood vessel that enters the diaphysis via the nutrient foramen. While most long bones have only one nutrient foramen, large bones, such as the femur, may have two. This...
Primary Motives: Sleep, Sex, and Pain Avoidance
Sleep is a fundamental physiological drive that fosters a state of restfulness crucial for several bodily functions. It facilitates body restoration, the process by which the body repairs, rejuvenates, and maintains itself during sleep, including memory...
Thermosensation

