The Science of Pain
Why do we hurt?
Pain is an experience completely generated from the brain. We need to pain to recognise a warning, designed to protect your body from harm.
Scientifically explained pain can come from tissue damage (such as pricking your finger on something sharp) and this is registered by microscopic pain receptors (nociceptors) in your skin. Each pain receptor forms one end of a nerve cell (neurone). It is connected to the other end in the spinal cord by a long nerve fibre or axon. When the pain receptor is activated, it sends an electrical signal up the nerve fibre.
Scientifically explained pain can come from tissue damage (such as pricking your finger on something sharp) and this is registered by microscopic pain receptors (nociceptors) in your skin. Each pain receptor forms one end of a nerve cell (neurone). It is connected to the other end in the spinal cord by a long nerve fibre or axon. When the pain receptor is activated, it sends an electrical signal up the nerve fibre.
The nerve fibre is bundled with many others to form a peripheral nerve. The electrical signal passes up the neurone within the peripheral nerve to reach the spinal cord in the neck.
Within an area of the spinal cord called the dorsal horn, the electrical signals are transmitted from one neurone to another across junctions (synapses) by means of chemical messengers (neurotransmitters). Signals are then passed up the spinal cord to the brain.
In the brain, the signals pass to the thalamus. This is a sorting station that relays the signals on to different parts of the brain. Signals are sent to the somatosensory cortex (responsible for physical sensation), the frontal cortex (in charge of thinking), and the limbic system (linked to emotions). (https://www.mydr.com.au/pain/pain-and-how-you-sense-it)
This explains the physiological system of pain, however there are cases of relatively painless trauma, and relatively trauma-less pain. None of this means that pain is “all in your head,” but it does mean that psychology has a profound influence on pain.
In this video below, Lorimer Moseley explores position the pain that we feel as our body's way of protecting us from damaging tissues further. He also looks at what this might mean for those who suffer from chronic pain.
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