Abstract
Pain is a complex physiological phenomenon; it is hard to define satisfactorily in human beings, and it is extremely difficult to recognize and interpret in animals. Scientific knowledge of pain perception in animals has been obtained by drawing analogies based on comparative anatomy, physiology, and pathology, and by inference based on subjective responses to pain experienced by humans. Debate continues about whether animals of different species perceive pain similarly and whether any species perceives pain the same way humans do. Our knowledge of the scientific basis of the mechanisms of pain in animals, however, has advanced substantially in the last two decades.
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Further reading
Erickson HH, Kitchell RL (1984): Pain perception and alleviation in animals. Fed Proc 43:1307–1312
Kitchell RL, Erickson HH, Carstens EA, Davis LE (1983): Animal Pain: Perception and Alleviation. Bethesda: American Physiological Society
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© 1988 Birkhäuser Boston, Inc.
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Erickson, H.H. (1988). Pain, Animal. In: Sensory Systems: II. Readings from the Encyclopedia of Neuroscience . Birkhäuser Boston. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-6760-4_32
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-6760-4_32
Publisher Name: Birkhäuser Boston
Print ISBN: 978-0-8176-3396-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-4684-6760-4
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