pain pathway

any neural pathway that mediates sensations of pain. Afferent pain pathways include rapidly conducting myelinated A fibers and slowly conducting unmyelinated C fibers, ascending tracts in the anterolateral system, the periaqueductal gray matter, the reticular formation, and many thalamic and cerebral cortical areas, especially the cingulate cortex. There are also efferent pathways that inhibit pain signals at various levels down to spinal synapses, including release of endogenous opioids that inhibit pain.

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Psychology term of the day

May 9th 2024

nonadditive

adj. describing values or measurements that cannot be meaningfully summarized through addition because the resulting total does not correctly reflect the underlying properties of and associations between the component values. For example, if two variables a and b interact to influence another variable y, the addition of the separate effects of a and b will not equal the total effect since the contribution of the interaction needs to be included. Compare additive.