Multisensory integration in pain and consciousness

Abstract

The study of pain could benefit from approaches that study mechanisms whereby sensory input is shaped by principles of self-organization. Multisensory integration represents a set of self-organizing principles wherein various dimensions of pain experience, such as perceived degree of threat presented by an object, may be partly related to spatiotemporal convergence of multisensory information. Similar self-organizing principles might explain the integration of sensory aspects of pain with other functions, such as memory and learning.