Summary: The Importance Of Pain In The Human Body

The human body performs many complex processes on a daily basis it is a machine working overtime to make sure our bodies can function effortlessly and maintain homeostasis. Any disruption in the body and the body is ready to respond performing many complicated procedures to bring the human body back into balance. For example, if a person steps on a thumb tack many people would think that all that occurs is that the person feels pain and the individual jerks their leg in response due to that pain. Though this is true to some extent, the process from the thumb tack entering the foot and the person responding to that pain is much more complicated than that.
First, what happens is a stimulus occurs due to a change in your body 's environment which …show more content…
Each neuron in the body has a negative, and positive side that is naturally attracted to each other but is separated by a plasma membrane (external boundary) until the energy created by the two is ready to be used. The plasma membrane has protein channels (gates) that allow the diffusion of ions. The three types of gates are leakage (passive) channels which are always open that allow k+ to leak out of the cell; chemical ligated gates which activate by the binding of chemical neurotransmitters and mechanical gates which enable in response to touch and pressure. When a neuron is at resting state (-70mv) the neuron is more negative on the inside of the cell compared to the extracellular space around it due to the passive channels.
Once the sensory receptors have detected a stimulus, the graded potentials open up sodium chemical gates which cause sodium to enter the cell but, for an action potential to occur the graded potential must reach a certain threshold (-55mv). Once the graded potential reaches its threshold it can now turn into an action potential, the voltage-gated sodium channels open up, and the inside of the cell becomes highly positive due to all of the voltage-gated