Pain Perception Of Pain Essay

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Pain perception and physical injury are terms that relate to pain and pain processing. The purpose of this essay is to offer a description showing evidence that the entirety of ‘perception of pain’ does not solely rely on ‘physical injury’. In order to give this, the essay will try to define these two terms separately. This will include a short description of the pain pathways including certain processes that enables gating of pain perception. There are instances, factors and circumstances that enables gating of pain perception. In this paragraph, this essay will try to define the two key terms of the topic. Firstly, ‘pain perception’, is a sensory process which is prompted by noxious stimuli, and a consciousness and an interpretation of a sensation caused by damage to body organ tissue. Secondly, ‘physical injury’ refers to the noxious stimuli, the real damage to body organ tissue. Now that it is clear what each of these terms relates to pain. Next, this essay will describe pain pathways and those biological processes that support the gate control theory. The ‘spinal reflex pathway’, sends pain the information straight to the muscles prompting a behaviour, such as moving the bodily organ away from the cause of pain. This pathway doesn’t transmit pain to the brain. ‘Spinothalamic pathway’, is also a pathway which is …show more content…

This type of pain arises when there is damage to nerves of the nervous system. Due to malfunction of the nerves information about pain is continuously being sent to the brain. Neuropathic pain is sometimes chronic. Phantom pain is one of the examples of the causes of this sort of pain. SDK100, (Topic 3, 6.1.2). In this situation, how is the pain even perceived if the pain carriers themselves are sick? Medical conditions such as cancer, amputation, compression of the spinal cord and shingles are also some of the examples of the causes of neuropathic

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