Chronic central neuropathic pain (Q47473)

Chronic central neuropathic pain is chronic pain caused by a lesion or disease of the central somatosensory nervous system. The pain may be spontaneous or evoked, as an increased response to a painful stimulus (hyperalgesia) or a painful response to a normally nonpainful stimulus (allodynia). The diagnosis of central neuropathic pain requires a history of central nervous system injury or disease and a neuroanatomically plausible distribution of the pain. Negative (e.g., decreased or loss of sensation) and positive sensory symptoms or signs (e.g., allodynia or hyperalgesia) indicating the involvement of the central somatosensory nervous system must be compatible with the innervation territory of the affected nervous structure.