Central Interactions of the Systems of Rapidly and Slowly Conducted Pain

Abstract

Pain is always a manifestation of consciousness, a subjective phenomenon, an experience. This is often forgotten by those medical men who are orientated predominantly to somatic aspects. Pain exists only in conjunction with an experiencing or sensitive subject. There is no such thing as an unconscious pain. The easiest way to induce the absence of pain sensation is by administering general anaesthesia, since this cuts out consciousness. Thus, pain is a phenomenon of the central nervous system. Peripheral processes, which can be recorded during painful stimulation, are able to trigger off the pain experience, but if the impulse is prevented from reaching the central nervous system, there is no pain experience. Neural impulses triggered by painful stimuli lead to the experience of pain only if they are conducted further into the central nervous system and, somewhere within the brain, pass over the threshold of consciousness.