Kind: captions
Language: en
to Keep Us Alive the brain has evolved
to look for signals of potential danger
one of the most important is pain and as
neuroscientist theanne Griffith is about
to show me sometimes that can be a kind
of Illusion as well so what is this this
is a thermal Grill okay this is a
machine that could give us some insight
as to how pain works in your brain all
right this is making me nervous already
as I'm getting strapped in don't worry
it's all an illusion actually
okay and it's comprised of these
different metal bars that are either set
to a cold or warm temperature so why
don't you go ahead and touch that first
bar it's warm right and then the next
bar cold mhm and then the next one warm
you see so they're alternating cold warm
cold warm now you want to see what
happens when you put your hand down not
necessarily go okay okay here we go ow
right isn't that interesting yeah what
is going on there it sort of feels cold
at first but then then it gets this kind
of burning sensation right yes very much
so it feels super hot like I'm getting
burnt so it's not 100% clear exactly how
this is happening but what we think
might be going on is that basically your
brain is getting a little bit confused
it's feeling cold and it's also feeling
warmth and somehow it's interpreting
these two signals as
pain here's what neuroscientists think
is is going on in your hands you have
separate sensors for heat cold and
pain normally when you touch something
slightly cold both your cold and pain
sensors are activated but the cold ones
override the signals from the pain
sensors telling your brain there's
nothing to worry about unless In This
Very unnatural scenario with the thermal
Grill you happen to be touching
something warm at the same time here the
heat signals cancel out the cold ones
leaving with just the pain ones
activated telling your brain
ouch so in that respect is pain real or
is it just an illusion or a construct of
the brain that's a really good question
so noxious stimuli is is a real thing
right if you stick your hand in boiling
water that's an aversive stimulus the
perception of a noxious stimuli is real
M pain is more of a construct right and
it can vary from Individual to
individual
pain is a construct of the brain how do
we know that you touch a needle right
and prick your finger we can draw the
anatomy of what just
happened we have very well-defined
Pathways saying this is pain information
we don't interpret it as pain until it
hits your
brain pain not unlike the experience of
color is a construct of the
mind but just because pain is in your
brain doesn't make it any less critical
for
survival pain is a very important
learning mechanism for children they
learn what behaviors they can engage in
that are safe and what behaviors will
they should not engage in because they
could cause them bodily harm and there's
um uh different mutations that people
can have in certain proteins that make
them completely insensitive to pain and
so kids do things like bite on their
lips or on their fingers when they're
very young and as they get older can
engage in Risky Behavior so pain is
extremely important for us to feel