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Mysterious Reflex Pain: Why Our Bodies Misperceive Visceral Pain as External Pain?
Reflex pain, also known as referred pain, refers to pain that is perceived in a different location than the source of the painful stimulus. Taking heart disease as an example, angina pectoris may cause pain on the left side of the neck, left shoulder or back, rather than in the heart. This phenomenon has long been proposed in the medical community, but its biological mechanism remains a mystery. Scientists have conducted many studies in this area to try to explain the root cause of reflex pain.
Reflex pain has been described since the 1880s, but even with a growing body of literature exploring the subject, its biological mechanisms remain unclear.
Characteristics of reflex pain
The characteristics of reflex pain are related to the intensity and duration of the pain that triggers it, and the location of these pains varies depending on these factors. In patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain, reflex pain areas expand in response to experimental stimulation, which is extremely rare in healthy individuals.
Many patients experience pain on the same side of the body that may be mistaken for originating from a painful point, but this is not always the case.
Mechanism of reflex pain
Currently, there are several different proposals for the mechanism of reflex pain. Classic theory holds that sensory pain fibers from the viscera return to the spinal cord along sympathetic nerves and that their cell bodies are located in the thoracic ganglia. When pain occurs in the heart, the spinal cord misinterprets the pain as pain coming from the body wall. This is why a person may feel heart pain radiating to the left side of the jaw or left arm without realizing it is pain from an internal problem.
This phenomenon is called "convergent projection," which is the belief that sensory nerve fibers from tissues converge on the same spinal cord neurons, creating the illusion of pain.
Application in clinical diagnosis
The phenomenon of reflex pain is of great significance to medical diagnosis. For example, in patients with heart disease, when specific reflex pain occurs, medical staff can more accurately pinpoint the cause. In addition, the centralization of reflex pain, which refers to the process of pain moving from distal to proximal end, has also been observed in some exercise treatments, which provides new ideas for treatment.
The phenomenon of centralization can help doctors determine whether a patient's pain is caused by bone or nerve damage, thereby avoiding unnecessary surgery.
Future research directions
Although current research on reflex pain has made some progress, there are still many unknowns. Recent research suggests that certain neuroimaging techniques, such as PET scans or fMRI, may be able to visualize the neural processing pathways involved in reflex pain. These techniques allow scientists to better understand the connection between visceral pain and external pain perception.
Further exploration of reflex pain may lead to the discovery of novel treatments and diagnostic tools, giving us hope for the future.
The pain system of the human body is so complex. Why do we sometimes mistake pain in internal organs for pain in other parts of the body? Does this allow us to further think about the nature of pain and the development direction of medicine?
