Nociception

Nociception (also nocioception or nociperception, from Latin nocere 'to harm or hurt') is the sensory nervous system's response to certain harmful or potentially harmful stimuli. In nociception, intense chemical (e.g., chili powder in the eyes), mechanical (e.g., cutting, crushing), or thermal (heat and cold) stimulation of sensory nerve cells called nociceptors produces a signal that travels along a chain of nerve fibers via the spinal cord to the brain.

Nociception triggers a variety of physiological and behavioral responses and usually results in a subjective experience of pain in sentient beings.

The analgesic effects after DBS do not seem to depend on short-duration changes in cutaneous sensory thresholds in dystonic patients and may be related to changes in the central processing of nociception ¹⁾.

Cutaneous nociceptive pathway function in cervical dystonia patients is normal, thereby indicating that myalgia in cervical dystonia is not associated with any central sensitization of nociceptive inputs in either painful (dystonic) or non-painful (non-dystonic) body areas ²⁾.