Turn away - and everything will pass, admonished our mothers and grandmothers, when we looked with horror at the bloody knee or cut on the finger. And in fact, it would seem, all the previous experience of mankind suggests that it is necessary to do this. However, researchers from the UK and Italy experimentally came to the opposite conclusion.
Contrary to the prevailing opinion that turning away or closing your eyes, you can reduce the pain, scientists argue that looking at a sore spot or injury, you just better carry it. According to them, a deeper understanding of the nature of pain in the future will help in the treatment of many chronic diseases.
Turn away?.
In the course of the experiments, which were funded by the British Council for Biotechnology and Biological Research, scientists from the universities of London and Milan applied heat sources to the hands of 18 volunteers. As soon as the pain became palpable, the achieved temperature was measured, and the "torture" ceased.
According to one of the authors of the study, Professor Patrick Haggard, such a measurement of the pain threshold is the most effective and reliable way to find out when the areas responsible for the sensation of pain.
After the initial measurement, scientists began experiments with mirrors to change the field of view of the experimental.
As a result, it turned out that when volunteers could see their fired hand in the mirror, they managed to tolerate a temperature of 3 degrees Celsius higher than when this hand was blocked by an opaque object.
"Usually, children are asked to turn away when they take a blood test or give them an injection, but we found that the wound actually acts like an anesthetic," explains Professor Haggard. - So my advice in this case - look at your hand, but try to avoid paying attention to the needle if possible ".
Sick imagination.
In another experiment, researchers used convex mirrors, so that the hand of the experimental person seemed larger. This also contributed to the increase in the pain threshold.
In the case of concave mirrors, the opposite effect was observed, the pain became unbearable at lower temperatures.
"We already know a lot about the ways in which pain signals come to the brain, but we do not yet understand the mechanism of interpreting these signals," says Professor Haggard. - Meanwhile, between painful and visual signals there is a very curious correlation ".
"Usually, psychotherapy aimed at reducing pain, focuses on its source and aims to distract a person from pain," says the study's head Dr. Flavia Mancini. "However, switching attention to our own body promises a fundamentally new way of dealing with pain".
Pain itself is one of the main problems of national health.
"We do not have exact figures, but only in the UK, several million people regularly experience pain, and this has a huge impact on their quality of life," explains the consultant of the Center for the Study of Pain at the University College of London, Dr. Paul Nandi. "In addition, the pain leads to huge economic losses, because only chronic back pain costs the economy 16 billion pounds sterling a year".
"In recent years, studies have focused on those parts of the nervous system that are treatable," says Dr. Nandi. "Fortunately, now the increasing interest is in the way the brain processes pain signals, and I think that it is in this fascinating sphere that there will be concentrated Basic research of the future ".
News. Gradusnik. En.