Pain & concentration

Pain is related to concentration...if you get hurt yr brain will take yr attention away from the pain so you can concentrate on how to 'survive'. Thus pain mostly comes sconds later after the cause of the pain.
Anyone having experience with this? Or aren't you agree with this quote?

 

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I have experienced that pain sometimes arrives a second or two after the cause. But I wouldn't assert that's because of any survival mode. Do you have any evidence for it ?

 

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Well I read an article that makes sence...When you are hurt yr brain distracts yr mind from the pain itselfs and concentrates on the cause. In this way human are abble to detect what caused the pain and flee from it if it is dangerous.
I think it makes sense...
What do you think?

 

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That doesn't make sense because your brain wants you to know where you've been hurt to take care of that place very fast in order for it not to get any worse.

 

There is already a natural delay of the pain, of maybe 1/10 of a second, because of the length of the nerve.
Pain is there to learn what is dangerous. It makes no sense to deliberately delay the pain to learn about the cause of the pain (when you haven't even felt the pain yet).
Pain itself is the stimulus that triggers problem solving and promotes learning. And then there is Nociception:
Nociception frequently occurs without pain being felt and can convey information without conscious awareness. Conversely, but less frequently, a sensation of pain can exist in the absence of nociception.
The nociceptive system transmits signals that usually trigger the sensation of pain, it is a critical component of the body's ability to react to damaging stimuli and it is part of a rapid-warning relay instructing the central nervous system to initiate reactions for minimizing injury.
~Wikipedia

Interestingly nociception can travel at different speeds:
There are two ways for nociceptive information to reach the central nervous system, the neospinothalamic tract for 'fast pain' and the paleospinothalamic tract for 'slow pain'.

Neospinothalamic tract
Fast pain travels via type Aδ fibers to terminate on the dorsal horn of the spinal cord where they synapse with the dendrites of the neospinothalamic tract. The axons of these neurons travel up the spine to the brain and cross the midline through the anterior white commissure, passing upwards in the contralateral anterolateral columns. These fibres terminate on the ventrobasal complex of the thalamus and synapse with the dendrites of the somatosensory cortex. Fast pain is felt within a tenth of a second of application of the pain stimulus and is a sharp, acute, prickling pain felt in response to mechanical and thermal stimulation. It can be localised easily if Aδ fibres are stimulated together with tactile receptors.

Paleospinothalamic tract
Slow pain is transmitted via slower type C fibers to laminae II and III of the dorsal horns, together known as the substantia gelatinosa. Impulses are then transmitted to nerve fibers that terminate in lamina V, also in the dorsal horn, synapsing with neurons that join fibers from the fast pathway, crossing to the opposite side via the anterior white commissure, and traveling upwards through the anterolateral pathway. These neurons terminate throughout in the brain stem, with one tenth of fibres stopping in the thalamus, and the rest stopping in the medulla, pons and periaqueductal grey of the midbrain tectum. Slow pain is stimulated by chemical stimulation, is poorly localized and is described as an aching, throbbing or burning pain.
~Wikipedia

 

I am not talking about minutes...just about a few miliseconds.
By the way why would you first look for the wound if the danger that hurted you is still around.
It makes much more sense to first detect the snake that just attacked you, to avoid another attack, than to look for the wound it just cause...no?

 

How would you know you are wounded if you feel no pain ?

 

That doesn't realy makes sense cause not all nerves have the same lenght. Your spinal nerve is the longest nerve, but otherones closer to you spine/brain are shorter...so that theory is not realy complete...denk je?

 

It is not you do not feel pain..your body decreases the pain so you are abble to run or to fight...that theory is based on the fight or run theory...

 

It depends on the pain levels, wouldn't you say? In some cases, the pain might be much too great to run or fight ...maybe too much for anything but screaming in pain.

Generalizations don't usually work well.

Baron Max

 

Well, it's a fact.. impulses are not instant. :shrug:

 

Don't you just mean adrenalin then ?

 

This is also true.

 

No. The first reaction I had after being bitten by a snake was to grab my arm and start sucking the venom out.

 

S you didn't first detected where the snakes position actualy was??

 

Adrenalin could be involved but we also have natural morphines that ease the pain.

 

Yes, I knew where I had been bitten after I was bitten. I then did what I could to help myself not kill a snake that may or not have been poisonous. After I did start to draw out the poison I did look for the snake and found it not far away. It was a rattler.

 

many have experienced extreme injury and not felt it. Soldiers have lost a leg in battle and yet tried to stand up. Its called shock.

I know if you concentrate you can lessen pain. Its called Lamaze.

 

There's some good information in this thread and also some misunderstandings/misconceptions.

The whole purpose of pain is to aid in self-preservation.

If you burn you hand on a hot stove, you first reaction is not to look at the injury (or check the TV guide fro your favorite show)

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but to jerk the hand away from the source of injury.

The thing that Orleander pointed out is very true also. People have been shot, stabbed and even lost a limb and didn't realize it for a period of time. It all depends on the intensity of your concentration when the injury occurred. If you are a soldier fighting a tense battle for your very life, the majority of pain-causing events are not even on your radar.

On the other hand, if you're simply relaxing on a the couch, a bite from a tiny insect like a flea can hurt a great deal.

So it's all a matter of your state of mind right at that moment the "painful" event occurs.

 

Exactly, that is more the thing I meant...
I also read that when you are (seriously/or not) injured your skin reacts in this way that yr skin tends to 'freez'...for one r other reason yr body bleeds less...never had exprerience with this...