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eglaser's picture

Pain

It was interesting to hear about the concept of pain being explained as a simple pattern of activity in one of the boxes of our nervous system. In our diagram of the system I would have thought it to be an input. After all, a person can percive pain without using their I-function. when a person burns their hand they withdraw the hand at the first feeling of pain, before the brain has time to register it. Does pain only be labeled pain if it is a part of the I-function? What about hose who can not feel pain? I know there are some individuals who are born without the ability to feel pain (http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Health/story?id=1386322) but still have an I-function. What does this do to inform us of pain and how it interacts with the I-function? Is some pain limited to a reflex arc within the sensory nerves and the spinal cord? I would like to learn more about the sensroy process of how a person feels and reacts to pain. 

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