A much smaller number of people are insensitive to pain due to an inborn abnormality of the nervous system, known as "congenital insensitivity to pain". Children with this condition incur carelessly-repeated damage to their tongues, eyes, joints, skin, and muscles. Some die before adulthood, and others have a reduced life expectancy.[citation needed] Most people with congenital insensitivity to pain have one of five hereditary sensory and autonomic neuropathies (which includes familial dysautonomia and congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis). These conditions feature decreased sensitivity to pain together with other neurological abnormalities, particularly of the autonomic nervous system. A very rare syndrome with isolated congenital insensitivity to pain has been linked with mutations in the SCN9A gene, which codes for a sodium channel (Nav1.7) necessary in conducting pain nerve stimuli.

An abnormality of the nervous system can render a small number of people insensitive to what?