Pain, Its Anatomy, Physiology and Treatment: Second Edition

Pain is a fascinating yet frightening subject, from wherever and however it is viewed. It has emotional features and medical features. Understanding pain and its cause is both interesting and challenging. Pain in itself is not life threatening, but it decreases the quality of life. The book Aage R. Moller: “Pain, Its Anatomy and Physiology” is now in its second edition. This revised edition includes recent developments especially regarding chronic neuropathic pain and its treatment. It discusses many aspects of pain such as how pain can affect people, the cause of many forms of pain and their treatment including some new little known treatments. It also discusses the efficacy of conventional treatments and their side effects. The effect of inflammation on many forms of pain including low back pain is discussed. Today’s treatment is often inadequate, especially for pain that lasts a long time. The reason can be that there is no known adequate treatment but often the reason is that the available treatments are not used or not used correctly. The book addresses many general questions about pain and it is written in common language and knowledge about neuroscience is not necessary for understanding the matters covered by this book. I therefore believe that many people who have pain will find the book of value in understanding their pain. I use the book as the textbook for teaching both graduate and undergraduate courses in the biology of pain in the Neuroscience Program of The University of Texas at Dallas School of Behavioral Neuroscience. Many of my undergraduate students have little knowledge of neuroscience.