Thursday, January 22, 2009
Pain Perception
Pain is both real and perceived. Everyone's response is based on biophysics and emotion. Emotion can of course play a big or small role depending on our psychological state of mind. Nonetheless the majority of our pain is based on very real biophysical and biochemical events. To simplify this event lets pretend that out nerve endings that carry pain sensation to the brain are a gate. Some gates are very easy to swing open with just a light touch or push , and others require pushing with both hands to swing open. Our nerves (gates) vary from person to person; and so nerves require much (gate pushing) or very little (gate touching) stimulation to create the sensation of pain. This is known as the Gate Theory of Pain and explains the differences in reaction to the same pain stimulus from person to person. It is an over simplification to label people as "wimps" or "stoics" and also, many times, unfair.
posted by Dr Leon Goldstein at 2:38 PM
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