What’s the role of the nervous system in chronic pain?

Chronic pain is rarely explained by tissue damage alone.

Clinicians increasingly recognize that the nervous system itself and not just the site of an original injury plays a defining role in whether pain resolves or persists.

As imaging and neurophysiology research has advanced, it’s become clear that the brain and spinal cord aren’t passive relay stations for pain signals. They actively shape, amplify, or dampen those signals, and in chronic pain conditions, they can continue generating the experience of pain long after any original tissue injury has healed.