The neurospychology of pain (original) (raw)
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The Neuroscience of Pain, and a Neuroethics of Pain Care
Neuroethics, 2010
Neuroscience, together with a broadened concept of "mind" has instigated pragmatic and ethical concerns about the experience and treatment of pain. If pain medicine is to be authentic, it requires knowledge of the brain-mind, pain, and the relative and appropriate "goodness" of potential interventions that can and/or should be provided. This speaks to the need for an ethics that reflects and is relevant to the contemporary neuroscience of pain, acknowledgment and appreciation of the sentient being in pain, effects of environment and value(s), and the nature of healing. It may be that neuroethics provides this viable meta-ethic for pain care. This essay describes how an integrative neuroethics of pain care allows, if not obligates, alignment of facts, values, and moral attitudes as a continuing process of re-investigation, analysis, and revision of what we know (and don't know) about brains, minds, selves, and how we regard and treat the painient. The Neuroscience and Neurophenomenology of Pain "…ask a man…a reason why he hates pain, it is impossible he can ever give any. This is an ultimate end…" David Hume [1] An enhanced understanding of neuroscience together with a broadened concept of "mind" has instigated pragmatic and ethical concerns about the experience of pain [2]. Such concerns must account for both the neural process of pain, and its proximate and more durable effects-as neural event and cognitive and emotional experience-that occur in painient beings existing within particular environments, communities and cultures. The experience of pain occurs through the activation of hierarchical networks that develop and may vary as a consequence of genotypic, phenotypic and environmental interactions throughout the lifespan of each individual [3, 4]. The newly popular phrase of "…see one brain, see one brain" would thereby suggest the improbability, if not impossibility of the colloquialism "…I feel your pain" as it is likely that the sensation and experience of pain are individually variant, subjective, and in reality, knowable only to the one who suffers. In essence, we cannot "feel" an other's pain any more than we can know what it is like to be another being
Pain, 1999
This essay is an attempt to clarify the construct of unpleasantness in the context of the psychophysics of pain. The first critical point is that one aspect of unpleasantness is tightly coupled to stimulus intensity and is therefore a sensory discrimination. Pain has this quality, but so do other somatic sensations such as itch and dysesthesias that are not recognized as painful by most people. A corollary of this is that pain must have a quality other than unpleasantness that allows it to be unequivocally identified. I use the term algosity for that quality. In addition to stimulus bound (primary) unpleasantness, there is an unpleasant experience that reflects a higher level process which has a highly variable relationship to stimulus intensity and is largely determined by memories and contextual features. I have termed this experience secondary unpleasantness. I suggest that the sensory-discriminative/affective-motivational dichotomy has outlived its usefulness and is currently more of an impediment than a guide to neurobiological explanations of pain. In order to increase our understanding of pain we need psychophysical tools designed specifically to differentiate primary unpleasantness from both algosity and secondary unpleasantness. These tools can then be used to determine the neural mechanisms of pain.
Review of Philosophy and Psychology
One use of the noun ‘pain’ is exemplified in sentences like ‘There is a pain in my foot’. According to the Experiential Theory, ‘pain’ in this context refers to an experience located in the mind or brain. According to the Bodily Theory, it refers to an extra-cranial bodily occurrence located in a body part. In this paper, I defend the Bodily Theory. Specifically, I argue that pains are proximal activations of nociceptors that cause experiences of pain. This view is preferable to the Experiential Theory, because it accords better with common sense and offers a better interpretation or semantics of ordinary pain reports.
The psychophysiology of pain: a literature review
RECIIS, 2008
The International Association for the Study of Pain defines pain as "an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage or described in terms of such damage". The sensory aspect of pain is associated with the transmission of the painful impulse called nociception. The emotional aspect, on the other hand, is related to the behavioral responses to pain. Pain warns us about some impending danger, protecting our organism and indicating limits. Besides inducing physical anomalies, pain can interfere with the psychological equilibrium of the individual. This literature review about the psychophysiology of pain aims to elucidate the ways of action of this phenomenon and its relation with behavioral alterations. The management of pain is based on its etiology, physiopathology and repercussions. In addition to the use of analgesics and adjuvants, the therapy should include non-pharmacological tools such as physiotherapy and rehabilitation as well as psychotherapeutic procedures.
Brain and Pain: Brain for Perception Not for Feeling - An Insight
International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Physiology, 2021
In exploring the rare connection of the brain and pain, we come across many complex concepts. The absence of pain receptors in the brain and brain being the seat of perception is just formidable to understand. This information has been used since the last several decades to perform awake brain surgeries. Pain as sensory stimuli is just like a tip of the iceberg because it has a multitude of dimensions. Tracing the journey of pain impulse is indispensable to understand the concept of pain perception. It was a strenuous job to locate the pain matrix and discover the functions of distinct areas of the brain in pain perception. The endogenous analgesic system forms the substratum in the arch of Descending pain modulatory pathway which decides whether the pain is terrible or tolerable. It is very important to understand the difference between a headache and brain ache. Emotions and pain are like the two faces of the same coin. This review is a general topic of interest and discusses the concept of pain perception and modulation.