Definition of "nociceptive" []

• Causing pain. Used of a stimulus. (adjective)
• Caused by or responding to a painful stimulus: a nociceptive spinal reflex. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "One, sometimes called nociceptive pain, results from damage to tissues, as from arthritis or a burn."
• "Adenosine A1 receptors mediate local anti-nociceptive effects of acupuncture"
• "On the contrary, as the science of pain has unearthed in the last forty years or so, there are physiologically specialized systems that process nociceptive stimuli from the moment they effect peripheral receptors to the central processing of these signals in the spinal cord and the brain."