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As I was unable to attend class last week, I found some of the above comments particularly interesting. I don’t know what was said exactly, but the whole concept of ‘context’ of pain is a complex one that I would like to address. The example for me that comes to mind is athletics. Athletes have been known to suffer extreme injury and “play through” intense pain; even without injury we are told to work through the pain and pain is perceived as a good thing because it is a means to getting stronger/faster/better. Some of this ability to work through pain is ascribed to the effects of adrenaline—but I would argue that this is the CAUSE of situational/contextual differences for pain. It’s a compelling argument, for me anyway, to think that any differences in pain level due to situation must be due to the other bodily factors that are associated with that situation. To used the examples above: someone said that in a depressed state pain can be more intense and less bearable. Could this simply be due to the fact that other chemicals may be out of whack and therefore make the pain worse? We simply don’t know enough about the effects a certain situation has on the body, and what their relationship to the pain pathway might be.

To extend this idea further, also discussed above is the idea that we all may experience pain differently. Could this also be due to differences in our body states--- we always seem to consider these differences as mental/emotional differences, rather than attributing them to our bodies themselves. We say that someone is a “baby” when they “cant take the pain,” as if it is somehow a choice or something that can be overcome with increased mental toughness. What if its just due to differences in hormonal levels? Or neural circuitry? It is also interesting to consider this in the reverse—do we change our neural environment when we decide to tough it out? We’ve always stressed that the brain is an incredibly powerful tool, so this doesn’t seem too far fetched to me. I’d be interested to know what you all think…