Advances in the Use of Noninvasive Brain Stimulation for the Management of Pain

Chronic pain is a common health care problem as-sociated with a myriad of diseases. Suboptimal pain management creates a burden on patients, causing detrimental eff ects on quality of life, loss of produc-tivity, unnecessary suff ering, and elevated health care costs. Pain processes are plastic, and prolonged/un-relenting pain causes maladaptive changes in neural structures. Th ere are diff erent mechanisms by which nociceptive pain, neuropathic pain, infl ammatory pain, and functional pain cause central and peripheral sensitization [18]. Central sensitization occurs usually through synaptic modifi cation in pain-related central structures, more specifi cally through activation of α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazole propionic acid (AMPA) receptors, modulation of