Abstract
Pain is a protective mechanism that has both sensory-discriminatory and affective-motivational aspects. Pain signals a potentially damaging event, and thus survival often depends on a strong association with this stimulus to be formed extremely rapidly, often after a single exposure. How are these rapid associations formed, and what are their consequences? Our hypothesis is that there are efficient, specific mechanisms employed by the brain to amplify associational learning to noxious stimuli. The hippocampus is critical for the formation of memory and learned associations. The project will examine how the hippocampus contributes to generating the affective and cognitive aspects of pain.
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