Neuropathic pain

Neuropathic pain is chronic pain produced by a lesion or disease of the somatosensory nervous system, either peripheral or central.

Unlike pain that signals tissue injury, neuropathic pain reflects abnormal processing within the nerves, spinal cord or brain. It is often burning or electric, may persist without any ongoing injury, and is frequently accompanied by allodynia, in which normally harmless stimuli such as clothing brushing the skin become painful. Causes include diabetes, shingles, spinal cord injury, stroke, multiple sclerosis and nerve compression.

Diagnosis relies on the history, a distribution of pain that matches a nerve territory, sensory examination findings and, where useful, electrodiagnostic tests or imaging. Validated questionnaires are widely used in both clinics and research. Cannabinoids are among the most studied non-standard approaches for this pain type, and systematic reviews describe the evidence as low to moderate in quality with small effects.