Pain is an important function ofthe nervous system which provides the human body with a warning of potential oractual injury.
This includes both emotional and sensory experiences. Pain perception is where pain isrecognised and interpreted by the brain. On the other hand, physical injury iswhere there is serious damage to someone’s body whether it is the function ofan organ or limb, disfigurement or even at risk of death. The aim of this essayis to describe the evidence that shows pain perception is not entirelydependent on physical injury.There are different types of painpathways. There is the spinal reflex pathway where it gathers information aboutstimuli and instigates reflex actions. Meanwhile, this route sends signals tomuscles which are relevant which results in the area of risk from beingdamaged.
For example, when you hit your elbow of something, the information istransmitted from the nociceptor to the interneuron within the spinal cord. The next pain pathway is thepathway to the brain. This happens when the nociceptor synapse with thetransmission cell in the spinal cord which the axon extends up to a regionwithin the brain called thalamus. Fromhere another neuron can send the signal to the somatosensory cortex whichinformation relating to pain can be sent to other regions of the brain forother processing. The last pain pathway is thepathway from the brain. Activity in the brain is the key for the perception ofpain and there are times when people don’t perceive pain at all. This pathwaybegins in the section of the brain called periaqueductal grey which travelsdown to stimulate the interneurons in the spinal cord.
They then form synapsewith the transmission cells to the spinothalamic pathway. When it comes to the specificmechanisms that allow pain perception to be gated, pain signals don’t reach thebrain as soon as they are generated at the injured sites. What they need is toencounter a number of neurological gates which take part in the spinal cordlevel which then decides whether the pain signals should reach the brain ornot.
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However, this means that pain isperceived when the gateway provides way for pain signals and is less intensewhen gate closes for signal to pass through. There are many different types ofpain. I feel that pain perception isn’t entirely dependent on physical injurybecause when you are in pain it doesn’t necessarily mean you are hurt yet ifyou are hurt it doesn’t mean you feel pain. When you feel physical pain, wemake sure we go to the doctors and get it looked at and treated. For example,if you break your ankle, you get it x-rayed and a cast is put on it to stop itfrom hurting.
Meanwhile when you feel emotionalpain, we don’t always ask for help and you defiantly can’t physically seeemotional pain. We can feel emotional pain when it comes to heartache, stressor when someone close to you dies. Toconclude I feel that pain perception is not entirely dependent on physicalinjury because there is so much evidence on different types of pain that thehuman body can take. Every human being goes through a majority of the differenttypes of pain.
