Abstract
Supraspinal mechanisms of pain are increasingly understood to underlie neuropathic ocular conditions previously thought to be exclusively peripheral in nature. Isolating individual causes of centralized chronic conditions and differentiating them is critical to understanding the mechanisms underlying neuropathic eye pain and ultimately its treatment. Though few functional imaging studies have focused on the eye as an end-organ for the transduction of noxious stimuli, the brain networks related to pain processing have been extensively studied with functional neuroimaging over the past 20 years. This article will review the supraspinal mechanisms that underlie pain as they relate to the eye.
Highlights
Supraspinal Mechanisms Underlying Ocular PainSupraspinal mechanisms of pain are increasingly understood to underlie neuropathic ocular conditions previously thought to be exclusively peripheral in nature
Ophthalmology as a clinical field has a preoccupation with what can be seen, for patients presenting with eye pain
This tract can be subdivided into three broad types of innervation: afferents leading to hypothalamic neurons directly, referred to as the retinohypothalamic tract; the retino-hypothalamoparasympathetic tract, which innervates the superior salivatory nucleus in the brainstem; and the retino-hypothalamosympathetic tract, which connects to the intermediolateral nucleus in the spine [54]
Summary
Supraspinal mechanisms of pain are increasingly understood to underlie neuropathic ocular conditions previously thought to be exclusively peripheral in nature. Isolating individual causes of centralized chronic conditions and differentiating them is critical to understanding the mechanisms underlying neuropathic eye pain and its treatment. Though few functional imaging studies have focused on the eye as an end-organ for the transduction of noxious stimuli, the brain networks related to pain processing have been extensively studied with functional neuroimaging over the past 20 years. This article will review the supraspinal mechanisms that underlie pain as they relate to the eye. Reviewed by: Betul Bayraktutar, Tufts Medical Center, United States Myeounghoon Cha, Yonsei University, South Korea. Specialty section: This article was submitted to Ophthalmology, a section of the journal
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