Modeling Pain Using fMRI: From Regions to Biomarkers

The “Pain Matrix” and its Descending Modulation. Simplified overview of the brain targets of the ascending (green) and descending (yellow) modulatory pathways for pain. The “pain matrix” is comprised of the thalamus, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), the anterior and dorsal posterior insula (aINS and dpINS), primary and secondary somatosensory cortices (S1 and S2) and the periaqueductal gray (PAG), and is often extended to include prefrontal cortices (PFC), as well as the basal ganglia (BG) and amygdala (AMY). Neuroimaging approaches to the study of these pathways must account for the complex interactions between these regions and the multiple roles any one region may play in pain perception