EFIC Lab-to-Society Working Group
Pain research produces a steady stream of findings with real-world implications, for people living with pain, for health professionals, and for society at large. Yet much of that knowledge remains within scientific circles, rarely reaching the audiences who could benefit from it most.
The EFIC Lab-to-Society Working Group was established to change that. Its purpose is to build a structured, sustained approach to translating pain research into accessible, evidence-based communication, and to support EFIC’s network of national chapters in disseminating that content across Europe in ways that are locally relevant and, where possible, multilingual.
Our approach
The working group develops communication around a defined thematic framework, updated on a regular cycle. Each theme gives rise to a series of focused, digestible outputs, covering key messages, myth-busting content, plain-language research summaries, and expert perspectives. These building blocks are designed to be reused and adapted, enabling EFIC chapters to amplify them within their own communities.
2026 theme
From Research to Reality: Pain Beyond the Myths
For 2026, the working group has chosen to focus on myths and misconceptions about pain: where they come from, why they persist, and what the evidence actually shows.
Misinformation about pain is widespread, in clinical settings, in media, and in everyday life. Persistent myths shape the decisions people make about seeking help, the advice they receive from health professionals, and the way pain is understood and managed at a societal level. Addressing these myths directly, with clear and credible research-backed messaging, is therefore both a scientific and a public health priority.
Throughout the year, the working group will release a rotating series of myth-busting outputs spanning different areas of pain science. This approach maintains variety and relevance while ensuring that each output is rooted in evidence and has clear clinical or patient relevance.
The fact sheets
The 2026 series is published as short, evidence-based fact sheets, each addressing one common myth about pain. They are free to read, share, and adapt.
New fact sheets are added throughout 2026.
Key concepts in pain science
Every fact sheet draws on the same core ideas. Use this glossary as a quick reference, and the timeline below to see how the understanding of pain developed.
The definition everything rests on
Pain
"An unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with, or resembling that associated with, actual or potential tissue damage."
International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP), 2020
The definition comes with six notes that matter for almost every myth in this series: pain is always a personal experience, shaped by biological, psychological, and social factors; pain and nociception are not the same thing; and being unable to describe pain in words does not mean it is not being felt.
Nociception
The nervous system's detection of potentially harmful, or noxious, stimuli such as heat, pressure, or injury. Nociception and pain are not the same: nociception can occur without pain, and pain can occur without nociception.
Central sensitisation
A process in which the central nervous system becomes more responsive to signals, so that pain can be amplified, spread beyond the original site, or persist after the tissue has healed.
The three types of pain
Current classifications recognise three mechanisms. A person's pain can involve more than one at the same time.
Nociceptive
Pain from actual or threatened damage to non-nerve tissue, with a normally functioning nervous system.For example a sprain, a burn, or inflammation.
Neuropathic
Pain caused by a lesion or disease of the nervous system itself.For example nerve injury or shingles.
Nociplastic
Pain arising mainly from altered processing in the nervous system, without clear tissue damage or nerve disease.For example fibromyalgia. Adopted by IASP in 2017.
Acute pain
Short-term pain, usually linked to injury, illness, or a medical procedure, that typically eases as healing takes place.
Chronic pain
Pain that persists or recurs for more than three months. In the WHO ICD-11 classification, chronic primary pain is recognised as a disease in its own right.
Definitions follow IASP pain terminology and the IASP definition of pain (2020). Chronic pain follows the WHO ICD-11 classification of chronic pain.
How pain research changed what we know
Our understanding of pain did not come from a single discovery. Over sixty years, laboratory and clinical research moved the field from treating pain as a direct readout of tissue damage to understanding it as an experience produced by the nervous system and shaped by the whole person.
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1965
Gate control theory
Melzack and Wall propose that the spinal cord can turn pain signals up or down. Pain is no longer seen as a simple one-to-one readout of injury.
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1979
The first formal definition of pain
IASP defines pain as a sensory and emotional experience, not only a response to tissue damage, setting a shared reference point for the field.
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1983
Central sensitisation identified
Laboratory work by Woolf shows the nervous system can amplify pain, helping explain why pain can outlast the injury that caused it.
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Mid-1980s
Infants are shown to feel pain
Research demonstrates that newborns mount clear responses to painful procedures, overturning the old assumption that infants do not feel pain and changing clinical practice.
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1994
Neuropathic pain formalised
The IASP taxonomy distinguishes pain caused by disease or injury of the nervous system, sharpening how different pain mechanisms are described.
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2015
Scans and pain shown to diverge
Large imaging reviews find that many people with no pain have "abnormal" findings on MRI, confirming that structure is a poor guide to who is in pain.
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2017
Nociplastic pain recognised
IASP adopts nociplastic pain as a third type of pain, alongside nociceptive and neuropathic, giving a name to pain driven by altered nervous-system processing.
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2019
Chronic pain enters the ICD-11
The World Health Assembly adopts ICD-11, the first classification to represent chronic pain systematically and to recognise chronic primary pain as a disease in its own right.
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2020
The definition of pain is revised
IASP updates its definition for the first time since 1979, with notes making clear that pain is a personal experience and that inability to communicate does not negate it.
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2021
Criteria for nociplastic pain
IASP publishes the first clinical criteria and grading system for nociplastic pain, moving the concept from theory towards everyday assessment.
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2022
ICD-11 comes into effect
The new chronic pain classification becomes part of international health reporting, embedding the modern understanding of pain in routine practice.
Sources: IASP definition of pain and pain terminology (2020); WHO ICD-11 classification of chronic pain (adopted 2019, in effect 2022); Melzack and Wall (1965); Woolf (1983); Brinjikji et al. (2015); Kosek et al. (2021).
Explore further on the EFIC site
These EFIC resources go deeper into the ideas above.