The Gate Theory of Pain Revisited: Modeling Different Pain Conditions with a Parsimonious Neurocomputational Model

Figure 14

Modelling the hypothetical situation where, after a period of standard stimulation, gate circuit inputs are both very intense as from iteration 50 to iteration 100. After iteration 100, the four different combinations of nociceptive/sensory inputs are presented to the circuit. In the present case, as in Figures 10 and 11 cases, plasticity is blocked from iterations 100 to 150, in order to analyze the response of the circuit. As can be noticed, pain response is only intense when both sensory and nociceptive inputs are intense and are simultaneously applied. When only a nociceptive intense input is applied, the pain response is moderate. No pain response is obtained in the remaining cases.