Pain Science

Nigel Peek, MSc Chiro (SA) | DIANM, Chiropractic Orthopaedist | PGDip HealSc Pain & Pain Management – Dist. (Otago) — Peek Practice, Grey Lynn, Auckland Pain is not a signal that travels from damaged tissue to a passive brain. That model — intuitive, persistent, and wrong — has been substantially revised over the last three decades. Understanding what replaced it changes how pain is assessed, explained, and treated. This is not a fringe position. It is the consensus view of c

The Short Answer Contemporary pain neuroscience tells us that pain is the brain's protective output — not a direct readout of tissue damage. The two are related, but they are not the same thing. You can have severe structural damage with no pain. Conversely, you can experience severe, disabling pain with no identifiable structural cause. In 2020, the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) formally revised its definition to reflect this, acknowledging pain as