[Neural basis of pain].

Main elements concerning the physiology of pain are described, as well as the structures of the nervous system at the origin of the central control of pain: peripheral fibres (small diameter myelinated A delta and unmyelinated C fibres); spinal ascending pathways; cerebral structures relaying nociceptive information (medial and ventro-postero-lateral thalamic relays); SI and SII cortical areas; spinal segmentary and supraspinal excitatory and inhibitory controls; diffuse noxious inhibitory controls (DNIC). Chronic pain is a result of two processes: peripheral and central sensitization, in relation with inflammation and nerve injury at peripheral level and with neuroplasticity at central level. Neurotrophins, mainly NGF and BDNF and their receptors (LNTR, TrkA and TrkB) are involved in these processes. Pain is a result of an unpleasant emotional experience: its various components, mainly the emotional one, may be increased or decreased considering the different characteristics of the stimulus and of the affective state of the patient, as well as the context in which this stimulus is applied. The role of physiological systems, unconnected with those classically involved in the physiology of nociception and pain, such as the motor cortex in phantom limb pain, are described in conclusion, to focus on the extreme complexity of the control systems of pain in humans.