Peripheral and neuraxial nerve blockades are widely used in the perioperative period. Their values to diminish acute postoperative pain are established but other important outcomes such as chronic postoperative pain, or newly, cancer recurrence, or infections could also be influenced. The long-term effects of perioperative nerve blockade are still controversial. We will review current knowledge of the effects of blocking peripheral electrical activity in different animal models of pain. We will first go over the mechanisms of pain development and evaluate which types of fibers are activated after an injury. In the light of experimental results, we will propose some hypotheses explaining the mitigated results obtained in clinical studieson chronic postoperative pain. Finally, we willdiscuss three major disadvantages of the currentblockade: the absence of blockade of myelinatedfibers, the inappropriate duration of blockade,and the existence of activity-independentmechanisms.
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