Why neuroscience is cool.

[elwen]

So I cut my knuckle at some point today. I didn't notice until suddenly I was aware of this sharp, burning pain on the back of my hand. After a few moments I looked and thought, "Hey, where did this come from?" When there was a sufficient break in figure skating coverage for me to pull myself away from the TV, I went and put some Neosporin on it. Like all knuckle grazes and cuts, it hurt a lot, even if not very deep. After a while, the pain went away.

Now, I know that pain is the body's "hey, you're injured"/"hey, stop doing that" signal. The question is, after you've realized you're injured, can the brain subconsciously tone it down? Is it something that happens at the site of the injury or in the brain itself?

Or is Neosporin just a great product? (Not even the pain relief version, with which I have not been very impressed.)

Maybe the answer is already out there. But I doubt we understand it as well as we think we do, if I learned anything at all in my "neuro for non-scientists" class.

I mean, my first thought was there was lots of nasty bacteria in the cut, considering I had no idea how I got it or how long it had been there. And maybe the pain was part of my body actively fighting off infection, which it stepped down once the Neosporin was there to help. (I was going to clean it with hydrogen peroxide, but I didn't want to open my brand new bottle for something so tiny.)

Anyway, just thought I'd share my random musings, in case anyone ever wondered how a science dork sees the world. (Albeit a perhaps not-very-educated, not-much-of-a-scientist-anymore science dork.)

Comments

[freeradical42.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you become habituated to pain. It's cool.

[ling84.livejournal.com]

The pain itself, as I understand it, is just due to mechanical stimulation of the nerve endings that got sliced when you got cut. (That's why pinched nerves can cause significant pain even if there's not much other tissue damage nearby.)