Nociplastic pain in research and practice : Overview of biopsychosocial principles, possibilities and difficulties

Abstract

Traditionally, two mechanistic pain categories were distinguished: nociceptive and neuropathic pain. After the definitions of these two mechanistic descriptors were refined more precisely in the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) taxonomy in 2011, alarge group of patients remained whose pain could not be assigned to either of the two categories. Nociplastic pain was therefore proposed as athird mechanistic descriptor in 2016. This review article presents the current state of the integration of nociplastic pain into research and clinical practice. In particular, the possibilities and difficulties of applying this concept are addressed from ahuman and animal experimental research perspective.