BIOM30001 Lecture 27: 27 Neurochemistry Pleasure and Pain II D
Document Summary
Pain regions have less activity during placebo analgesia. Regions activated by exogenous opioids also activated with placebo. Can block placebo analgesia with opioid antagonists that block effect of endogenous peptides - lose ability to reduce pain. If you measure pain and combine it with a state that induces pleasure, pain will be reduced. Ability of pain to reduce pleasure state is counteracted by opioid agonists (strategy used by heroin addicts) Pain is always subjective (there are no objective measures of it) Pain is an experience, with sensory and emotional aspects. The relationship between tissue damage and pain is variable, so the size of an injury can be a poor guide as to how much pain someone is in. The signals the body sends from an injury site are referred to as nociceptive signals. These signals only become experienced as pain when they reach the conscious brain, and the person interprets them as pain.
