Abstract: An important aspect of our knowledge about pain mechanisms is the recognition that the plasticity of the nervous system is a key element in the generation of persistent and chronic pain. We know that pain is a dynamic sensation, and we think that the symptoms associated with
pain perception are the consequence of plastic changes along the pain system, from peripheral nerves to the higher centers of the brain. Phantom limb sensations, including pain, following the amputation of a limb have been attributed to spontaneous nerve activity from the stumps
to mirage sensations caused by abnormal brain processing or to a combination of both mechanisms. The main problem when dealing with phantom limb sensations is the lack of relationship between a missing input and a vivid output in the form of a sensory perception of a non-existing body part. These dissociations are a feature of complex brain activity and in the talk, I will show examples of how the brain can ignore or modify a sensory input to provide a sensation that does not mirror the presented input.

Biography: Fernando Cervero graduated in Medicine in 1972 and obtained a PhD in Neuroscience in 1975. Between 1975 and 1994 he held academic and research posts at Edinburgh and Bristol Universities (UK). From 1994 to 2002 he was appointed Professor and Chair of Physiology at Alcala
University (Madrid, Spain) and in 2002 moved to McGill University in Montreal (Canada), where he was appointed Director of the Alan Edwards Centre for Research on Pain. He has studied the mechanisms of pain and analgesia using techniques ranging from human psychophysics, to cellular and molecular analysis in experimental animals, with a special interest on the peripheral and spinal mechanisms of visceral pain and on the CNS generation of hyperalgesic states. He is a Past-President of the International Association for the Study of Pain (2012-14), member of the Academia Europaea and Editor-in-Chief of Neurobiology of Pain. He currently lives in the UK.

00:00:00 Introduction
00:00:24 Prof. Cervero: Understanding Phantom Limb Pain
00:01:37 Understanding Phantom Limb Pain
00:02:22 Science driven by war
00:04:20 War-wounded celebrities
00:06:56 Definition of Phantom Limb
00:07:38 Phantom Limb – Causes
00:10:34 The Pain Pathway (1664)
00:11:49 The “Pain Pathway” today
00:12:21 Stimulus-response relationship
00:12:55 Nociceptors (human microneurography)
00:14:21 Input-output dissociation (Neuropathic pain)
00:15:55 Examples of input-output dissociation
00:18:44 Phantom Limb Causes: Stump – periphery
00:22:00 Phantom Limb Causes: Brain – central
00:23:26 Neuropathic pain
00:25:02 Summary / Conclusion
00:28:20 Conclusion

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