Has it hurt you? It will not be so much!

2003/09/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Osasuna

Or yes? Doctors and nurses have long realized that some patients are more sensitive to pain than others. Now, with the same painful stimulus as a series of volunteers, scientists have seen that there is a big difference in brain response.

The research, conducted at a medical school in North Carolina, has shown through the scanners made to these volunteers that not all people have the same sensitivity. For this it has started with the temperature of the human body and a heat of up to 49ºC has been placed in the calf. The volunteers, for their part, point out the pain they have felt on the scale from 1 to 10.

Researchers have found that what is indicated on the scale corresponds to the scanner images: the most painful volunteers show more activity in the cerebral cortex than others, especially in areas related to pain, attention and. Yes, all the volunteers have explained the activity in the stem, which shows that everyone has received the sign of pain.

Therefore, the study indicates that in those who feel less pain, the pain signal does not weaken towards the brain, while the key is in the interpretation that the brain makes when information arrives.