Cite this article: Walters ET, Williams ACdC. 2019 Evolution of mechanisms and behaviour important for pain. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 20190275. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2019.0275 Evolution of mechanisms and behaviour important for pain Edgar T. Walters1 and Amanda C. de C. Williams2 1 Department of Integrative Biology and Pharmacology, McGovern Medical School at UTHealth, 6431 Fannin St, Houston, TX 77030, USA 2 Research Department of Clinical, Educational & Health Psychology, University College London, Gower St, London WC1E 6BT, UK Corresponding authors: Edgar T Walters,
[email protected], and Amanda C de C Williams,
[email protected] Summary Our understanding of the biology of pain is limited by our ignorance about its evolution. We know little about how states in other species showing various degrees of apparent similarity to human pain states are related to human pain, or how the mechanisms essential for pain-related states evolved. Nevertheless, insights into the evolution of mechanisms and behaviour important for pain are beginning to emerge from wide-ranging investigations of cellular mechanisms and behavioural responses linked to nociceptor activation, tissue injury, inflammation, and the environmental context of these responses in diverse species. In May 2019 an unprecedented meeting on the evolution of pain hosted by the Royal Society brought together scientists from disparate fields who investigate nociception and pain-related behaviour in crustaceans, insects, leeches, gastropod and cephalopod molluscs, fish, and mammals (primarily rodents and humans). Here we identify evolutionary themes that connect these research efforts, including adaptive and maladaptive features of pain-related behavioural and neuronal alterations - some of which are quite general, and some that may apply primarily to humans.