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Pain perception
Pain perception
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Pain is a sensation felt by all. Whether it is due to an injury or illness, falling down or emotionally scarred inside, majority of humans feel pain. The somatic sensation pain is derived from nociceptors (Bear, Connors & Paradiso, 2007). Nociceptors are liberated unmyelinated nerve endings that acts as an indicator of injury or risk of injury to the body tissue (Bear, Connor & Paradiso, 2007). Selective activation of nociceptors can elicit the conscious occurrence of pain (Bear, Connors & Paradiso, 2007). The underlying questions remains, how is pain processed in the brain. Do we all process pain the same? What factors are responsible for contributing to the processing of pain?
Damage to human tissue that would generate pain can be caused by numerous stimuli. Some of the stimuli include but is not limited to, tough mechanical stimulation, excessiveness in temperature, oxygen dispossession, and contact with chemicals (Bear, Connors & Paradiso, 2007). All of the above factors have potential to cause tissue damage thus activating nociceptors (Bear, Connors & Paradiso, 2007). Activating of the nociceptors generate action potentials. At the location of the injury, the damaged cells cause a discharge of numerous substances that stimulates ion channels on nociceptor membranes to open (Bear, Connors & Paradiso, 2007). The opening of the nociceptor membranes generates a pain sensation.
The fact that the perception of pain varies is well recognized. Depending on the synchronized intensity of nonpainful sensory contribution and the behavioral perspective, the same intensity of nociceptor activity can generate additional or fewer pain (Bear, Connors & Paradiso, 2007). Pain induced by action in nociceptors can additionally...
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...ors & Paradiso, 2007). Studies propose numerous brain areas can be attributed to pain suppression (Bear, Connors & Paradiso, 2007). One particular area is a sector of neurons in the midbrain called periventicular and periaqueductal gray matter (Bear, Connors & Paradiso, 2007). In general, the PAG obtains contributions from an array of brain structures (Bear, Connors & Paradiso, 2007). Most of these structures are responsible for the transmission of signals correlated to emotional status (Bear, Connors & Paradiso, 2007). Neurons in the PAG bear the responsibility to transmit descending axons into a variety of midline areas of the medulla (Bear, Connors & Paradiso, 2007). In turn the medullary neurons task axons along to the dorsal horns of the spinal cord, in efforts to successfully depress the activity of nociceptive neurons (Bear, Connors & Paradiso, 2007).
What is the physiologic mechanism causing the wound to become red, hot, swollen, and painful?How is this different than the inflammatory response that might occur in an internal organ?
It has been shown that intrathecal administriton of GABA receptor antagonists cause hyperalgesia and allodynia. Constitutive, the increase in the endogenous GABA activity in the spinal cord alleviate pain resulting from noxious and innoxious mechanical and thermal stimuli. Different GABA receptors have different roles in alleviating thermal and mechanical pain in different animal pain models. There is no study to date that has examined the involvement of GABA A and GABA B in sensory dimension of neuropathic pain resulting from compression of spinal cord. The current study tests the hypothesis that GABA A or GABA B receptors contributes to the allodynia and hyperalgesia observed after spinal cord injury. The results showed that the effect of GABA A and GABA B receptors on mechanical hyperalgesia is similar but these receptors have different effects on thermal hyperalgesia. While using baclofen as GABA B receptor agonist does not affect the thermal pain, thermal hyperalgesia resulting from spinal cord injury was greatly alleviated by different doses of GABA A agonist, muscimol. Both Baclofen and muscimol are able to reduce the mechanical and cold allodynia has been seen after spinal cord injury but the effect of baclofen is dose dependent with no effect in higher doses used in this study. While almost all doses of muscimol were used in this study reduce the amount of cold and mechanical allodynia. The other result obtained in this study is the short term effect of GABA agonist. The anitinociceptive effect of Baclofen and muscimol appear to be maxium at 15 min after injection and gradually diminished by time and their analgesic effect disappeared 3 hours after injection.
Rowland, Lewis P. (ed.): Merritt's Textbook of Neurology, eighth edition. Lea and Febiger. Philadelphia, 1959, pp. 630--631.
Each sensation has its own neuronal receptor, such as: “mechanosensation, thermosensation, vibration, joint position, chemosensation, and electrosensation.” Oaklander then discusses “nocifensive sensations,” or senses that defend us from danger, such as pain and itch. These sensations trigger reflexes and strong movements. However, something that is often left undetected is chronic neuropathic pain, which can cause nerve damage. Shingles is a result of chronic neuropathic pain.
What exactly is pain? According to Webster's dictionary, pain is "physical suffering typically from injury or illness; a distressing sensation in a part of the body; severe mental or emotional distress". Most everyone reading this paper has experienced some form of physical pain at some point during their lives; most everyone has even experienced the common daily pains such as stubbing our toe as we walk through the living room, accidentally biting our tongue as we chew, and having the afternoon headache after a long day of work. No matter the fact that it is unpleasant, pain has a very important role in telling the body that something is not right and leading to behavior that will remove the body from a source of potential injury. Imagine if we could not experience pain. We would not be able to change our behavior in any way when touching the burning hot dish in the oven, resulting in potentially serious burns. We could not recognize that perhaps we twisted an ankle when walking down the stairs, thus continued walking on that foot would exacerbate the injury to the point of not being able to walk at all. Indeed, pain is not pleasant, but in many cases it is an important way for our nervous system to learn from and react to the environment.
Pain has been an under-researched area of medicine, but today physicians are increasingly interested in the workings and treatment of various types of pain. In particular, a growing body of research exists on the different ways in which men and women may experience pain and the implications of these differences for medical treatment. Does the sex of an individual make a difference in their pain experience? Numerous researchers believe that women are more sensitive to pain than men, while others believe that the differences between the pain experiences of men and women are not significant. Over the course of my research I found that part of the problem in trying to answer the question lies in how scientists measure the pain experience of men and women.
The control center of the human body is none other than the mighty brain. Due to its incredible importance in basic human functioning, both voluntary and involuntary, any injury or trauma to this organ will have a great influence on the body and it's capabilities (Burrus, 2013). Exploring how the brain deals with various injuries and damage proves that the functionality of the brain is fitting to make the brain the power house of the body. But before exploring this with the help of case studies, it is important to first make sense of the the anatomy and functioning of the nervous system as a whole in order to understand how it is affected during injury, the functioning of the body that is lost, the intervention implemented for treatment or rehabilitation and the changes experienced.
Rowland, L. P., ed. Merritt’s Textbook of Neurology. 7th ed. Lea and Febiger. Philadelphia: 1984.
Kanske, P., Heissler, J., Schönfelder, S., Forneck, J., & Wessa, M. (2013). Neural correlates of
Based on the findings presented, Dr. Green made the correct diagnosis in predicting that this gentleman had a spinal cord injury.
Circumcision, the removal of the foreskin over the penis, was long thought to be a painless experience for an infant and was treated accordingly with little or no anesthesia. Most of the times during the surgical procedure, the babies cry very forcefully. This was for a long time thought to be normal and healthy. Other times, they lie still without making a sound from either shock or the act of passing out from the pain (1). This unresponsiveness was always thought to be from undeveloped pain receptors, or Nociceptors in the Somatosensory system (2) . These pain receptors send information to the spinal cord, then to the brain stem, thalamus, and somatosensory cortex. Modulation can occur through these pathways by way of suppression using large mechanosensitive fibers that enter the spinal cord or by endorphine release. This modulation involves changing the information about the pain to lessen the perception of its magnitude.
These patterns occur only with intense stimulation. Because strong and mild stimuli of the same sense modality produce different patterns of neural activity, being hit hard feels painful, but being caressed does not. It suggested that all cutaneous qualities are produced by spatial and temporal patterns of nerve impulses rather than by separate, modality specific transmission routes. Gate control theory of pain states that stimulation by non-noxious input is able to nullify pain.
Somatic pain is that in which nociceptors in the cutaneous or deep tissues are activated by noxious stimuli. This is usually characterized by dull, aching pain which is well localized. This type of pain may be commonly experienced by individuals with metastatic bone pain or those who h...
Overall, there is an immense amount of research dedicated to understanding the psychobiological causes of phantom pain. A prevalent commonality between the literatures reviewed, suggested that symptoms of phantom pain are a neuro-psychobiological experience rather than a psychological disorder. This was evident by peripheral and central factors that associate the cause of phantom pain with the disruption of sensory nerve impulses due to the damage of sensory nerve fibers after amputation. As well as studies that demonstrated a positive correlation between progressive neuroplastic changes in the cortical reorganisation of the topographical structure in somatosensory cortex and worsening phantom limb pain, inferring that cortical reorganisation mediates the extent of pain experienced.
college of obstetricans in 2010, they state that the cortex is needed in order to feel pain. Another