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Encyclopedia of Neuroscience pp 2797–2803Cite as

Neuropathic Pain

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Synonyms

Neurogenic pain

Definition

Neuropathic pain is defined as a “Pain arising as a direct consequence of a lesion or disease affecting the somatosensory system” [1]. The term “disease” refers to identifiable disease processes such as inflammatory, autoimmune conditions or channelopathies, while lesions refer to macro- or microscopically identifiable damage. The restriction to the somatosensory system is necessary, because diseases and lesions of other parts of the nervous system may cause nociceptive pain. For example, lesions or diseases of the motor system may lead to spasticity or rigidity, and thus may indirectly cause muscle pain. These pain conditions are now explicitly excluded from the condition neuropathic pain.

Characteristics

Epidemiology of Neuropathic Pain

Chronic neuropathic pain is common in clinical practice, greatly impairs the quality of life of patients and is a major economical health problem. Estimates of point prevalence for neuropathic pain in the general...

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References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Neurological Pain Research and Therapy, Department of Neurology, Universitätsklinikum Schleswig-Holstein, Campus Kiel, Kiel, Germany

    Maike Stengel & Ralf Baron

Authors
  1. Maike Stengel
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  2. Ralf Baron
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physiology & Biophysics, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, Washington, USA

    Marc D. Binder

  2. Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy, Graduate School of Medicine University of Tokyo Hongo, Bunkyo‐ku, Tokyo, Japan

    Nobutaka Hirokawa

  3. Göttingen, Germany

    Uwe Windhorst

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© 2009 Springer-Verlag GmbH Berlin Heidelberg

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Stengel, M., Baron, R. (2009). Neuropathic Pain. In: Binder, M.D., Hirokawa, N., Windhorst, U. (eds) Encyclopedia of Neuroscience. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-29678-2_3927

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