According to the basic assumption of pain research, the activity of pain matrix shows an increase in functional neuroimaging studies during nociceptive stimulation whose extent is correlated with the intensity of the stimulus and that of the emerged experience of pain. Research conducted over the past decade has questioned this assumption. In order to understand the controversial findings I have reviewed new results of pain research. In order to get to know more about “hardware”, I reviewed the direct relationships between members of the pain network. With a view to understand the mechanism of the development of pain perception, the “software”, I give a brief description of the functioning of the salient as well as attention and executive control network. To have a better understanding of “hardware”, I examined the behavior of the pain network of patients incapable of feeling pain in aversive situations. In the review I introduced the thought-provoking knowledge of the pain for all experts, regardless of this specialty by presenting the results of pain research.
Abnormalities of the executive control network in multiple sclerosis phenotypes: An fMRI effective connectivity study
