Phenomenon Of Pain

The Phenomenon of Pain Winston Churchill once said, “Critism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.” Pain is often perceived as a negative feeling, but Winston Churchill points out that pain is necessary in order to call attention to a problem with the body. Without pain an injury could go on without being noticed for a long period of time, which could lead to critical complications in the future. Therefore, pain is an essential part of survival. The phenomenon of pain is complex and was a difficult topic to understand until Robert Melzack and Patrick Wall came up with a theory that attempts to explain how pain works. The Gate-Control …show more content…
Pain starts when receptors located in the skin are stimulated by touch and depression. Tactile information, information that pertains to the sense of touch, is then sent to the brain through several steps. Once the nerve endings are stimulated, a message is sent through the nerve connections to an important part of the central nervous system, known as the spinal cord. The central nervous system is made up of the brain and the spinal cord, which connects the brain with the peripheral nervous system. Melzack and Wall concluded that a section of the spinal cord, acts as a “gate”. This “gate” can stop messages from reaching the somatosensory cortex, which is located in the parietal lobe and is where touch, temperature, pressure, and pain register. The “gate” can also let the messages pass onto the brain through means of the brainstem, then the mid-brain, and then finally reaching the somatosensory …show more content…
The researchers, Melzack and Well concluded that messages that are sent from the brain to the spinal cord can stop the transfer of pain messages. These pain messages are stopped at the “gate”, located in the spinal cord, causing an extensive impact on the perception of pain. Perception is a process in which the brain organizes and interprets information from stimuli, more specifically sensory stimuli. The communication between the brain and the spinal cord that inhibits the transfer of messages is the reason why people that are distracted by something going on around them may not experience the pain of a sustained injury until sometime after the initial injury took place. An example of this is when a competitive athlete is injured during a game and does not notice the injury because they have not experienced pain mainly because he or she is so concentrated on the competition going on around them. It has been concluded that distraction is another method of managing pain, although this is not extremely successful when applied to long-term pain situations like carpal tunnel and arthritis. Another way to decrease the perception of pain involves one of the body’s natural neurotransmitters, endorphins. Endorphins are natural painkillers and are released upon