Nociceptive pain

Scientific basis

The IASP defines nociceptive pain as pain that arises from actual or threatened damage to non-neural tissue and is due to the activation of nociceptors. It can be somatic (skin, muscles, joints, bones) or visceral.

It is one of the three mechanistic descriptors of pain, along with neuropathic pain, related to a lesion or disease of the somatosensory nervous system, and nociplastic pain, related to altered nociception without clear evidence of tissue damage or of a lesion of the somatosensory system sufficient to explain the pain. These mechanisms can coexist in the same person: this is then called mixed pain.

Blue Portance / SBNFA™ reading

Nociceptive pain is the category most directly linked to the mechanical stress applied to tissues. SBNFA™ nevertheless points out that its intensity is not proportional to the damage or to the stress: the pain felt also depends on how the nervous system processes the information.

Contribution to the analysis of sitting

Pain that appears with the duration of a given support and decreases when the support changes points toward a mechanical component, without making it possible to classify the mechanism of the pain. Not all pain in the seated position is nociceptive.

Not to be confused with

Nociception, the process of detecting damaging stimuli, which is not in itself pain; neuropathic pain, related to a lesion or disease of the somatosensory nervous system; nociplastic pain, related to altered nociception without clear evidence of damage sufficient to explain the pain.

Related terms

Chronic pain · Neuropathic pain · Nociplastic pain · Nociception

Sources and scope

• IASP: pain terminology (reference definitions)
• Kosek et al. (2016): do we need a third mechanistic descriptor for chronic pain states? (Pain)
• Basbaum et al. (2009): cellular and molecular mechanisms of pain (Cell)