Nociplastic pain

Nociplastic pain, formerly known as central sensitisation, is chronic pain that persists without evidence of tissue injury, resulting in and being sustained by aberrant or heightened pain signal processing of the central nervous system (CNS). It may occur in combination with the other types of pain or in isolation. The pain may be generalised or multifocal, and it can be out of proportion to any associated physical cause.

The concept and term were formally added to the taxonomy of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) following the recommendation of a task force in 2017. The root terms are the Latin nocēre ('to hurt') and the Greek plastós (πλαστός), meaning "development" or "formation" in a medical context.

This type of pain typically arises in some chronic pain conditions, with the archetypal condition being fibromyalgia. Exercise, psychotherapy, and medical therapies are commonly prescribed for such conditions. Nociplastic pain has also been hypothesized to play a role in the persistence of medically unexplained symptoms.