Pain memory in clinical practice

Carlos Forner-Álvarez; Ferran Cuenca-Martínez; Carlos Forner-Álvarez; Ferran Cuenca-Martínez

doi:10.3934/medsci.2026011

AIMS Medical Science

2026, Volume 13, Issue 3: 151-158. doi: 10.3934/medsci.2026011

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Commentary Special Issues

Pain memory in clinical practice

Biopsychosocial Health Research Group (BPS-Health), Department of Physiotherapy, University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain

Received: 30 March 2026 Revised: 02 July 2026 Accepted: 13 July 2026 Published: 20 July 2026

Pain is increasingly understood not only as a sensory event but also as a cognitive and affective experience that becomes encoded, stored, and reconstructed through memory. Research on pain memory has expanded significantly in recent years, revealing considerable variability in the accuracy of recalled pain. Importantly, emerging evidence demonstrates that pain memory holds meaningful clinical implications. This commentary focuses on discussing the role of pain memory in clinical practice, with an emphasis on its clinical implications and both current and future clinical applications. The key clinical implications of pain memory involve its impact on decision-making about procedures that may cause pain, on future painful experiences, and on the likelihood of developing chronic pain. However, despite these findings, current clinical practice often relies on pain recall alone, without assessing the contemporaneous pain event. This approach introduces potential bias, given that pain memories are known to be inaccurate. Therefore, it may be important in the future to determine how pain memory can be accurately assessed and effectively used to create new opportunities for improving pain management, predicting long-term outcomes, and developing interventions that address maladaptive pain recollections. Further empirical work is essential to determine the feasibility and clinical value of integrating pain memory into routine practice.
- pain memory,
- clinical implications,
- pain recall,
- clinical application,
- pain chronicity,
- recall accuracy
Citation: Carlos Forner-Álvarez, Ferran Cuenca-Martínez. Pain memory in clinical practice[J]. AIMS Medical Science, 2026, 13(3): 151-158. doi: 10.3934/medsci.2026011

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Abstract

Pain is increasingly understood not only as a sensory event but also as a cognitive and affective experience that becomes encoded, stored, and reconstructed through memory. Research on pain memory has expanded significantly in recent years, revealing considerable variability in the accuracy of recalled pain. Importantly, emerging evidence demonstrates that pain memory holds meaningful clinical implications. This commentary focuses on discussing the role of pain memory in clinical practice, with an emphasis on its clinical implications and both current and future clinical applications. The key clinical implications of pain memory involve its impact on decision-making about procedures that may cause pain, on future painful experiences, and on the likelihood of developing chronic pain. However, despite these findings, current clinical practice often relies on pain recall alone, without assessing the contemporaneous pain event. This approach introduces potential bias, given that pain memories are known to be inaccurate. Therefore, it may be important in the future to determine how pain memory can be accurately assessed and effectively used to create new opportunities for improving pain management, predicting long-term outcomes, and developing interventions that address maladaptive pain recollections. Further empirical work is essential to determine the feasibility and clinical value of integrating pain memory into routine practice.

Conflict of interest

Ferran Cuenca-Martínez is the guest editors for special issue of AIMS Medical Science and was not involved in the editorial review or the decision to publish this article. All authors declare that there are no competing interests.

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