Question

pain an unpleasant but extremely important sensation, why? how does the body sense pain? what makes the experience of pain different for different people? Answer from Physiological perspective.

Answer 1

Pain is an important sensory symptom. Though it is an unpleasant sensation, it has protective or survival benefits.

The sensation of pain is detected by various receptors present on the skin. All pain receptors are free nerve endings. The free nerve endings senses pain stimulus and creates and action potential which travels to spinal cord. Form spinal cord , second order neurons transmit this potential into the brain, where the pain is sensed and appropriate motor activity is generated.

Different people have different degree of pain sensation. For example, in old people, due to degeneration of nerves because of aging, the nerve endings gets weak and thus transmit less signals to the spinal cord. Thus pain sensation decreases.

Also , pain sensation is also related with the emotional status of an individual. The pathway of emotions is also connected with the tract which carry pain sensation.

So if person is highly emotional, then these emotions suppresses the pain sensation.