What is this thing called pain?

Woolf, Clifford J.

Program in Neurobiology and Department of Neurology, Children’s Hospital Boston, and Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

Address correspondence to: Clifford J. Woolf, Children’s Hospital Boston, Harvard Medical School, 300 Longwood Avenue, CLS 12258, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA. Phone: 617.919.2265; Fax: 617.919.2772; E-mail: [email protected].

Journal of Clinical Investigation 120(11):p 3742-3744, November 1, 2010. | DOI: 10.1172/JCI45178

To paraphrase Cole Porter’s famous 1926 song, “What is this thing called pain? This funny thing called pain, just who can solve its mystery?” Pain, like love, is all consuming: when you have it, not much else matters, and there is nothing you can do about it. Unlike love, however, we are actually beginning to tease apart the mystery of pain. The substantial progress made over the last decade in revealing the genes, molecules, cells, and circuits that determine the sensation of pain offers new opportunities to manage it, as revealed in this Review series by some of the foremost experts in the field.