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

Figure 11

Modeling wind-up pain. After 50 iterations with standard training epochs, signals from mechanoreceptors become weak but repetitive, without any other type of stimulation. This situation is modeled from iterations 50 to 100 in which the gate circuit, instead of receiving different stimuli like in previous cases, only receives a repetitive weak sensory stimulus. For understanding pain responses to other types of stimuli during the phase of repetitive weak sensory stimulation, all types of plasticity (synaptic and intrinsic) are blocked from iterations 100 to 150 (as done in previous example). As can be seen, after a prolonged weak sensory stimulation, the circuit relays a pain output in the case of no stimulation (between periods of weak sensory stimulation).