Definition of Peripheral Nerve Stimulation

that is rapidly gaining popularity for a variety of clinical conditions. Despite its straightforward nature, the modality has been for a long time treated as a ‘stepchild’ of the neuromodulation field, yielding the spotlight to the more ubiquitous spinal cord stimulation (SCS) and the more elegant deep brain stimulation (DBS) approaches. Interestingly enough, the main theoretical explanation of the neuromodulatory treatment of pain, the ‘gate control theory’ of Melzack and Wall was first illustrated by an example of PNS when courageous investigators were able to suppress pain perception with electrical stimulation of their own infraorbital nerves using percutaneously inserted electrodes.