Referred pain, also called reflective pain, is pain perceived at a location other than the site of the painful stimulus. An example is the case of angina pectoris brought on by a myocardial infarction (heart attack), where pain is often felt in the left side of neck, left shoulder, and back rather than in the thorax (chest), the site of the injury. The International Association for the Study of Pain has not officially defined the term; hence, several authors have defined it differently. Referred pain has been described since the late 1880s. Despite an increasing amount of literature on the subject, the biological mechanism of referred pain is unknown, although there are several hypotheses.
