In World War II, the doctor Henry Beer saw that some of his military patients, despite being injured in the battlefield, did not require any strong pain reliever to manage their pain. In some cases, the injury was severe as losing part of an organ.
In fact, a remarkable event came into the game – the effect of fear, stress and emotion on the brain stopped their pain. But how does it work – and how can we use it for our profit?
We all struggle with pain many times. Burning of indigestion, vins of a scalled from kettle. Strong stab of a chopped finger.
But despite its unpleasantness, pain has a serious significant purpose, designed to protect the body rather than damaging. A fundamental concept to understand first is that you do not detect pain – this is a sensation. A sensation that your brain has created – from information it is obtained from countless neurons (nerve cells) that supplies your skin.
These special neurons are called nociceptors – they detect stimuli that are toxic, or potentially harmful to the body. This stimulation can range from a mechanical cut or crush injury, ranging from extremely hot or cold temperatures.
Therefore, if you touch a warm iron, or stand on a sharp nail, the correct response is to move your hand or leg away from it. The brain responds to pain by starting contraction of muscles in your hand or leg. In doing so, some other damage is postponed.
The courses of information, running to another with one neuron in a relay, are transported as an electric current called action potential. These begin on the skin, traveling with nerve highways and spinal cord. When the information reaches the upper level of the brain – cerebral cortex – a sensation of pain arises.
Pain signal
Many different factors can interfere with this broadcast of information – we do not experience pain if the passage of the cortex is blocked. For example, use anesthetics.
Local anesthetics are injected into the skin directly to neosecipters (eg lidocaine) – perhaps to stitches in A+E. Other agents induce the loss of consciousness – these are general anesthetics for more broader surgical operations.
Pain is also a very variable experience. Usually, we ask patients to determine their pain by giving ten to ten with a value of zero. One person will consider one in five of ten pains, the other can consider one seven – and the other one two.
Some patients are produced without the ability to pain – this rare condition is called congenital analgesia. You may think that this is an advantage, but the truth is quite opposite. These individuals will be unaware of the circumstances where their bodies are being damaged, and can maintain more intensive injuries, or remember them completely and suffer the results.
How to dodge your mind
What is more extraordinary that we all have a congenital ability to control the level of our pain. In fact, a natural pain reliever is found deeper within the nervous system.
The secret is located in a structure located very in the middle of your brain: periyaccuctal gray (steps). This small, heart -sized area contains neurons whose role is to reach the upcoming pain signals to the cerebral cortex. In doing so, it is capable of reducing any pain that will be experienced otherwise.
Let’s consider this in practice using the extreme example of the battlefield. This is an example where sensing pain can actually prove to be a more obstacle than help. This can interrupt a soldier’s ability to run, or to help with peers. In temporarily numbness of pain, the soldier is able to avoid a dangerous environment and take refuge.
But we face many examples of this ability that take action in our everyday routine. Never raised something in the kitchen that you suddenly realize that it is very hot? Sometimes he descends on the casserole dish or saucepan floor, but sometimes we are able to grab it for a long time to move it to the stove-top. This action can be dropped down to stop the sensation of heating something very heated by the steps, just enough to stop it.
Substances that produce this effect are called NKFelin. They are produced in many different regions (including pag) and spinal cord, and may have similar functions as strong analgesic. It has also been suggested that long term or Long -term Pain – which is continuously and useful for the body – may occur as a result of abnormalities within this natural analgesic system.
This question arises: How can you go about hacking your own nervous system to create analgesic effects?
There is a growing evidence to suggest that the release of pain reliever nakefelin can be increased in various ways. Exercise is an example – one of the reasons that the prescribed exercise may be able to perform miracles for pain and pain (eg pain) rather than popping popping popping.
In addition, stressful conditions, feeding and sex can also affect the activity of Nakefeline and other related compounds.
So, how can we go about it? Take strength or endurance training? Reduce our stress? Good food? Good sex? While these options in pain management require more work to clarify a role, their reward may be more than our thoughts.
Pain is a complex, poorly deemed experience, but the future is bright. Only last month, the FDA approved the use of a new drug magazines for managing acute pain.
It works by closing nociceptors in the peripheral nervous system, and therefore prevents the brain pain signals. It represents a possible new success in a world that has become dependent on drug addiction such as morphine and phentanel.
Developing new pain relieving treatments depends on the work of pain researchers to highlight complex neuronal circuitry and function. There is no denying that this is a difficult task. But considering how our body generates and suppresses pain, we can expect to understand how they can act as their own doctors.
,Author: Dan Bomguard, Senior Lecturer, School of Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience, Bristol University)
,disclosure statement: Dan does not work for Bomguard, consults, works in his shares, or gets funding from any company or organization that will benefit from this article, and did not disclose any relevant affiliation beyond his academic appointment Is)
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