Abstract
Pain significantly influences emotional and cognitive functions, which also modulate pain perception. Perception, thinking and affect are dysregulated in most psychiatric disorders and this is reflected in the nociception.
The pain threshold is increased in patients with schizophrenia, borderline personality, eating disorders, and in suicidal persons. Frequently observed self-mutilation in such patients is also accompanied with decreased pain perception.
Contradictory results are reported in patients with depression. Depression increases vulnerability to pain but on the other hand the chronic pain often coincides with depression.
As the pain is controlled by similar neuro-chemical and neurohormonal mechanisms that control psychiatric state, the parallel study of pain should help to understand these mechanisms, especially if the time will be respected as an important variable.