A historical view about ideas about pain “The expression ‘painful’ can be used to describe both an embarrassing moment and a cut on the finger. An explanation for this dichotomy can be found in the convoluted history of ideas about pain. Whether pain is an independent sensation and the product of dedicated neural mechanisms continues to be a topic of debate. This overview concentrates on the issue of specificity together with other notable information regarding pain that has emerged since 1800.” “Considering the evidence, it seems reasonable to propose pain to be both a specific sensation and an emotion, initiated by activity in particular peripheral and central neurons. Pain shares features with other sensations, but the strong association with disposition is special. The mechanisms of pain include specialized receptive organs, selective and convergent pathways, plasticity of responsiveness and interactive modulation. No single theory (emotion, specific, intensive, pattern or gate) fits the present evidence by itself, although a combination of ideas answers most issues. Reason suggests an integration of features is the best choice for a working hypothesis.” “Craig proposes pain as a homeostatic emotion” Ref.: Perl ER. Ideas about pain, a historical view. Nat Rev Neurosci. 2007 Jan;8(1):71-80. Craig, A. D. Pain mechanisms: labeled lines versus convergence in central processing. Annu. Rev. Neurosci. 26, 1–30 (2003).
Posted on: Sun, 14 Dec 2014 20:58:58 +0000
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