AUTHOR=DosSantos Marcos F. , Moura Brenda de Souza , DaSilva Alexandre F. 

TITLE=Reward Circuitry Plasticity in Pain Perception and Modulation

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Pharmacology

VOLUME=Volume 8 - 2017

YEAR=2017

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/pharmacology/articles/10.3389/fphar.2017.00790

DOI=10.3389/fphar.2017.00790

ISSN=1663-9812

ABSTRACT=Although pain is a widely known phenomenon and an important clinical symptom that occurs in numerous diseases, its mechanisms are still barely understood. Owing to the scarce information concerning its pathophysiology, particularly what is involved in the transition from an acute state to a chronic condition, pain treatment is frequently unsatisfactory, therefore contributing to the amplification of the chronic pain burden. In fact, pain is an extremely complex experience that demands the recruitment of an intricate set of central nervous system (CNS) components. The mosaic designed encompassesThis includes cortical and /subcortical areas involved in interpretation of the general basic characteristics of noxious stimuli. It also comprises noxious stimuli properti other regions and neural circuits that process the motivational- and affective pain dimensions of pain. Hence, the reward circuitry represents a vital element for pain experience and modulation. This review article focuses on the interpretation of the extensive data available connecting the major components of the reward circuitry to pain suffering, including the nucleus accumbens, ventral tegmental area and the medial prefrontal cortex; with especial particular attentionattention dedicated to the evaluation of neuroplastic changes affecting these structures found in chronic pain syndromes, such as migraine, trigeminal neuropathic pain, chronic back pain (CBP) and fibromyalgia.