Although it describes something universally experienced, pain is a strange word in English―it almost defies definition and there are few synonyms. The phenomenon is the outcome of a series of sensory, cognitive, and emotional processes, and brain-mapping studies show that pain centers and emotion-processing regions overlap. This is probably why it is so hard to disentangle the components and to objectively analyze pain. Even though each encounter with pain is subjective, the sensation falls on a spectrum of tolerance and is modulated by context. The degree and duration of sensation also depend on whether we are dealing with the distinct physiologies of acute or chronic pain.
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