Has Science Cracked the Code on Chronic Pain?

One reason chronic pain is so difficult to characterize is because the experience of pain is highly complex. It is tied not only to the somatosensory cortex, where the brain receives and processes sensory information, such as touch and temperature, but also to cognitive and emotional processing sectors of the brain. It is deeply entwined with expectation and reward circuits, as well as those related to mood and attention, all of which are constantly fluctuating based on input, environment, and individual biology.