What Is Neuroplastic PAIN?
Understanding the brain's protective alarm system
Introduction
Not all pain comes from injury or structural damage. In fact, many chronic symptoms — even those that feel physical — are created and maintained by the brain and nervous system. This is known as neuroplastic PAIN — where the body is safe, but the brain keeps sending danger signals.
The word PAIN here stands for Protective Alarm In the Nervous System. It reminds us that pain is not just a sensation — it's a protective mechanism. When the brain perceives threat, it sounds an alarm to protect you. But sometimes, that alarm keeps ringing even after the danger is gone.
Neuroplastic PAIN can take many forms: physical pain (back, neck, joints, headaches), sensory symptoms (tingling, burning, vibration, weakness), and functional syndromes (digestive issues, chronic fatigue, tension). All of these experiences are real, but they are reversible, because the same neuroplastic brain that learned to create pain can also learn to turn it off.
Different Ways to Explain Neuroplastic PAIN
Below are several perspectives and metaphors that help understand how neuroplastic pain works — each one highlighting a different way the brain can accidentally keep the alarm on.
1
The False Alarm
Neuroplastic pain is like a false alarm. The pain feels real — because it is real — but it's caused by the brain's mistaken interpretation of safe signals as dangerous.
Everyday examples:
Smoke Alarm
A smoke alarm goes off from cooking steam.
Car Alarm
A car alarm activates when a leaf falls on the hood.
Dashboard Light
A dashboard light warns you about an oil change you already made.
The alarm is loud and real, but the danger is not.
2
When the Brain Misinterprets Sensations
Our brain sometimes confuses neutral sensations with danger:
  • Mistaking a baseball for a hand grenade — reacting as if it were deadly.
  • Seeing a garden hose and thinking it's a snake — and feeling genuine fear.
In pain terms, the brain interprets harmless body sensations as painful threats.
3
Predictive Processing and Perception
The brain constantly predicts what it expects to happen — and those predictions shape perception.
Examples:
Peach/Apple illusion
You expect a crunchy apple but bite into a peach — it tastes "wrong," though nothing is wrong.
Construction worker story
A man steps on a nail and feels excruciating pain — but the nail never pierced his foot. The perception of danger alone caused the pain.
Snake vs. twig
Researcher Lorimer Moseley scratched his leg on a twig, but his brain, remembering a snakebite, produced intense pain again. His memory — not the twig — created the signal.
4
Amplification of Pain
Imagine wearing a hearing aid turned up too loud. If someone speaks at 2/10 volume, you might hear it as 8/10.
The same happens with pain:
There's a "volume knob" in the brain that can increase or decrease the intensity of sensations depending on how much danger it perceives. When the brain feels safe, the volume turns down.
5
Fear Fuels Pain
Fear is the brain's amplifier. When pain appears and we respond with anxiety or alarm, the brain learns that the signal means danger, keeping the pain loop alive.
Examples:
The Toddler
A toddler falls — if the parent gasps, the child cries; if the parent smiles, the child often laughs.
The Matrix
Like in The Matrix: once Neo sees the illusion, the bullets lose power.
Pain is real — but when we see its origin, it loses control over us.
6
Learning and Unlearning Pain
Pain pathways are learned neural habits. Like walking through grass — after repeated trips, a path forms. The more fear we attach to pain, the stronger that path becomes.
But new paths can always be made.
Just as we learn to walk, ride a bike, or play music, the brain can unlearn pain through new experiences of safety.
7
Conditioned Responses
The brain forms associations to protect us — but sometimes it links safe things with danger.
Examples:
Got sick from one berry → avoid all berries.
Felt pain while sitting → brain decides sitting causes pain.
Ate neutral food before a virus → later can't eat that food.
Overdrank one beverage → later can't stand its smell.
Heard a rooster before sunrise → thought the rooster caused it.
These false links can be undone once we recognise them for what they are — learned responses, not threats.