What imaging teaches us about pain.

Pain diminishes the quality of life for many people, although it also may be a vital teacher or a warning message to be heeded. How humans process pain is a complicated, individualized process affected by genetics, personality, life experiences, and straightforward physiological processes. Imaging provides investigators with insight into this complicated phenomenon, and it promises to continue to help experts understand not only how pain is processed, but also why chronic pain develops in some people but not others, how we might better manage pain, and how pain may have played a key role in human evolution.