Interesting comment:

"“Although much progress has been made, we still don’t fully understand the complete biology of how chronic pain emerges in a person, which slows down the development of effective and safe treatments,” Tan told me this week."

In fact, scientists have no idea how any experience emerges - this is the "hard problem of consciousness," which David Chalmers wrote about in Scientific American in 1995, and which remains the #1 unsolved problem in science.

Meanwhile, both the American and International pain associations have in recent years defined "pain" as psychological. The term for purely physical adverse sensations is 'nociception."

And both associations recommend psychological treatments as an essential component of all pain treatment.

The problem with this is the word "psychological" usually translates as "emotional," when the physician-recommendations are far more complex.

For approximately 50 years, basic components of Dr. Ronald Melzack's pain theory have been fundamental to pain treatment, but many physiatrists (pain specialists) and others who treat pain don't understand it.

ALL pain - regardless of the cause - has instinctive/emotional/cognitive components. Until this is understood and incorporated into pain treatment, we are likely to continue to have difficulty treating pain.

A simple way to say it is: "No brain, no pain." Sever the nerves to your hands, and you can plunge a knife into the hand and you won't feel anything.

Change the way the brain interprets the sensations from the hand, and you can radically reduce any pain.