Sometimes, pain is useful - next time, you will avoid the sharp corner on that table. But sometimes, pain continues, stopping you from moving on with your life even long after an injury has healed. Where does pain come from, and what can we do about it? How can we make sense of pain that is no longer helpful?

This lecture will address current concepts of what pain is, how it emerges, and what can alter it, and will discuss how pain shapes our behaviour to protect us from harm. The audience will be introduced to a perceptual inference framework for pain, which considers the challenge of integrating diverse, and sometimes conflicting, information to work out: are we under threat, and is pain the best way to protect us?

Register now | Read more