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The golden anniversary of Melzack and Wall's gate control theory of pain: Celebrating 50 years of pain research and management

PainSci » bibliography » Katz et al 2015
updated

One page on PainSci cites Katz 2015: Counterstimulation, Counterirritation, and Gate Control

original abstract †Abstracts here may not perfectly match originals, for a variety of technical and practical reasons. Some abstacts are truncated for my purposes here, if they are particularly long-winded and unhelpful. I occasionally add clarifying notes. And I make some minor corrections.

November 2015 marks the 50th anniversary of the 1965 Science publication “Pain Mechanisms: A New Theory” by Ronald Melzack and Patrick D Wall (1), in which the authors introduced the gate control theory of pain that has since revolutionized our understanding of pain mechanisms and management. The brilliance, creativity and critical thought that went into the formulation and explication of the gate control theory of pain can best be appreciated by reading the original article. Fifty years later, having become part of our scientific history and accepted as common knowledge, the essence of the theory is often conveyed by the familiar diagram in Figure 1.

Salamander logo, marking the end of the article.

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