Soreness vs. Pain: Decoding Your Body's Signals
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Soreness can be viewed as a distinct characteristic of various acute and chronic pain syndromes.
Soreness vs. Pain: Decoding Your Body's Signals
We all experience physical discomfort, but the intuitive difference between soreness and pain is not always fully appreciated. Soreness is a type of physical discomfort different from pain in that it serves a purpose that may evoke a motivation to massage or stretch an area of the body. Pain, on the other hand, often leads to avoidance or protective behaviors.
To truly grasp the spectrum of these sensations, from mild soreness to sharp, acute pain, it's crucial to consider the underlying sensory processes. While we're familiar with nociception, the process by which the nervous system signals potential tissue damage, researchers are exploring a potentially distinct pathway specifically related to soreness. This emerging concept is termed "sngception" (Lee et al., 2025; Su et al., 2025).
Sngception is proposed as a specific somatosensory function responsible for transmitting the sensation of acidity from the body's periphery to the central nervous system. Understanding sngception as a separate form of sensory perception could provide a more refined understanding of the continuum between soreness and pain.
Intriguingly, research suggests that sngception may not only transmit the "soreness" signal itself but could also interact with other sensory information, including antinociception (the body's natural pain-inhibiting mechanisms). A key player in sngception appear to be acid-sensing ion channels (ASICs) located on proprioceptive muscle afferent neurons. These channels detect changes in extracellular pH, which is thought to contribute to the unique perception of muscle soreness (Sng) – a Taiwanese word with the closest meaning to soreness.
The complex pattern of sensations experienced in musculoskeletal conditions like osteoarthritis, back pain, and fibromyalgia underscores the complexity of our sensory system. These conditions likely involve a wide array of nerve fibers that innervate the musculoskeletal system, highlighting the need for a deeper understanding of both nociception and the emerging concept of sngception to better address and manage musculoskeletal pain.
Glossary
Noxious stimulus - A stimulus that damages or threatens to damage normal tissue.
Nociception - The neural responses of encoding and processing of noxious stimulus.
Pain - An unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with, or resembling that associated with, actual or potential tissue damage.
Sng (pronounced sә-ng, 痠) - An unpleasant sensory and emotional experience, primarily or partially associated with acid-sensing mechanisms, that often evokes a motivation to take active relief efforts.
Sngception - A specific somatosensory function that transmits the acid sensation from the peripheral to the central nervous system. Sngception could partially overlap with nociception, but it could also transmit antinociception, proprioception, and pruriception.
References and Sources
Chiu, H. Y., Su, I. W., Yu, Y. W., Chen, Y. C., Chen, C. C., & Lin, J. H. (2023). Soreness or sng: a common symptom with differential clinical impact from pain in degenerative lumbar spine diseases. BMJ open quality, 12(1), e001982. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjoq-2022-001982
Hung, C. H., Chin, Y., Fong, Y. O., Lee, C. H., Han, D. S., Lin, J. H., Sun, W. H., & Chen, C. C. (2023). Acidosis-related pain and its receptors as targets for chronic pain. Pharmacology & therapeutics, 247, 108444. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pharmthera.2023.108444
Lee, C. H., & Chen, C. C. (2024). Role of proprioceptors in chronic musculoskeletal pain. Experimental physiology, 109(1), 45–54. https://doi.org/10.1113/EP090989
Lee, C. H., Lin, J. H., Lin, S. H., Chang, C. T., Wu, Y. W., Bewick, G., Banks, R. W., Gründer, S., Hochgeschwender, U., & Chen, C. C. (2025). A role for proprioceptors in sngception. Science advances, 11(5), eabc5219. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abc5219
Lin, J. H., Hung, C. H., Han, D. S., Chen, S. T., Lee, C. H., Sun, W. Z., & Chen, C. C. (2018). Sensing acidosis: nociception or sngception?. Journal of biomedical science, 25(1), 85. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12929-018-0486-5
Su, I. W., Hung, C. H., Lin, J. H., & Chen, C. C. (2025). A revisit of soreness and acidosis-related pain. Pain, 10.1097/j.pain.0000000000003595. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1097/j.pain.0000000000003595
Sun, W. Z., Chen, C. C., & Lin, J. G. (2024). When sng meets acupuncture -- a paradigm-shift biomarker for translational research. Journal of traditional and complementary medicine, 15(1), 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtcme.2024.07.008