How do we know its really pain?
The US research authored by Mark Rosen of the University of California suggests that pain is a psychological construct based on experience and memory. Others such as Lrs Arendt-Neilson (a pain expert from the University of Denmark) say that too much emphasis is placed on the idea that you need a functioning cortex to feel pain. He says that patients that have suffered a brain injury in the region of their sensory cortex have still reported percieving pain. But then there are cases of events such as grimaces or flinching occuring in brain-dead or anaethetised patients undergoing surgery.So what is pain exactly? How is it defined? Natural phyical response, or psychological response?
posted by rosey @ 4:09 PM
1 Comments:
There are several theories about the "realness" of pain. It has mostly been determined that pain is, in essence, psychological. This is demonstrated by the phenomenon of phantom feelings which, oddly enough, disappear when given pain medication. Pain (as with any form of sensation) is basically seen as a conditioned response of our brain to tell us when something (in the case of pain BAD) is happening to our bodies. But I am incoherent as I have slept a grand total of 1.25 hours in the last two days, so I can't really give you a well-rounded view... S.
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