摘要:The management of the pain state is of great therapeutic relevance to virtually every medicalspecialty. Failure to manage its expression has deleterious consequence to the well-being of theorganism. An understanding of the complex biology of the mechanisms underlying the processing ofnociceptive information provides an important pathway towards development of novel and robusttherapeutics. Importantly, preclinical models have been of considerable use in determining the linkagebetween mechanism and the associated behaviorally defined pain state. This review seeks to providean overview of current thinking targeting pain biology, the use of preclinical models and thedevelopment of novel pain therapeutics. Issues pertinent to the strengths and weaknesses of currentdevelopment strategies for analgesics are considered.