ArticlePhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2019
Adaptive mechanisms driving maladaptive pain: how chronic ongoing activity in primary nociceptors can enhance evolutionary fitness after severe injury.
Article in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 27 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
27 citing papers in PubMed, 55 citations in OpenAlex.
- Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study to evaluate the effect of treatment with an SPMs-enriched oil on chronic pain and inflammation, functionality, and quality of life in patients with symptomatic knee osteoarthritis: GAUDI study.Journal of translational medicine · 2023Trial
- Review
- From nociception in aneural animals to human suffering: toward a comparative biology of pain.The Journal of experimental biology · 2025Review
- Article
- Maladaptive changes in the homeostasis of AEA-TRPV1/CB1R induces pain-related hyperactivity of nociceptors after spinal cord injury.Cell & bioscience · 2025Article
- Injury alters sensory, motor, and integrative elements underlying operant conditioning in the medicinal leech.PloS one · 2025Article
- Widespread latent hyperactivity of nociceptors outlasts enhanced avoidance behavior following incision injury.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- The mutually reinforcing dynamics between pain and stress: mechanisms, impacts and management strategies.Frontiers in pain research (Lausanne, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Post-injury pain and behaviour: a control theory perspective.Nature reviews. Neuroscience · 2023Review
- Labour's pain: strenuous subsistence work, mechanical wear-and-tear and musculoskeletal pain in a non-industrialized population.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Persistent nociceptor hyperactivity as a painful evolutionary adaptation.Trends in neurosciences · 2023Review
- Chloride-dependent mechanisms of multimodal sensory discrimination and nociceptive sensitization ineLife · 2023Article
- Differential behavioral response to predator odor in neuropathic pain in mice.Frontiers in pain research (Lausanne, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Exaptation and Evolutionary Adaptation in Nociceptor Mechanisms Driving Persistent Pain.Brain, behavior and evolution · 2023Review
- Pain: Behavioural expression and response in an evolutionary framework.Evolution, medicine, and public health · 2023Article
- The role of neuroinflammation in the transition of acute to chronic pain and the opioid-induced hyperalgesia and tolerance.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2023Review
- Electrophysiological Alterations Driving Pain-Associated Spontaneous Activity in Human Sensory Neuron Somata Parallel Alterations Described in Spontaneously Active Rodent Nociceptors.The journal of pain · 2022Article
- Individuals with both higher recent negative affect and physical pain have higher levels of C-reactive protein.Brain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2022Article
- Painful Truth: The Need to Re-Center Chronic Pain on the Functional Role of Pain.Journal of pain research · 2022Article
- A ligand-receptor interactome platform for discovery of pain mechanisms and therapeutic targets.Science signaling · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Chronic pain is considered maladaptive by clinicians because it provides no apparent protective or recuperative benefits. Similarly, evolutionary speculations have assumed that chronic pain represents maladaptive or evolutionarily neutral dysregulation of acute pain mechanisms. By contrast, the present hypothesis proposes that chronic pain can be driven by mechanisms that evolved to reduce increased vulnerability to attack from predators and aggressive conspecifics, which often target prey showing physical impairment after severe injury. Ongoing pain and anxiety persisting long after severe injury continue to enhance vigilance and behavioural caution, decreasing the heightened vulnerability to attack that results from motor impairment and disfigurement, thereby increasing survival and reproduction (fitness). This hypothesis is supported by evidence of animals surviving and reproducing after traumatic amputations, and by complex specializations that enable primary nociceptors to detect local and systemic signs of injury and inflammation, and to maintain low-frequency discharge that can promote ongoing pain indefinitely. Ongoing activity in nociceptors involves intricate electrophysiological and anatomical specializations, including inducible alterations in the expression of ion channels and receptors that produce persistent hyperexcitability and hypersensitivity to chemical signals of injury. Clinically maladaptive chronic pain may sometimes result from the recruitment of this powerful evolutionary adaptation to severe bodily injury. This article is part of the Theo Murphy meeting issue 'Evolution of mechanisms and behaviour important for pain'.
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