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Author Spotlight: Quantifying Pain Experience – An Illustrative Approach Using the Pain Body Diagram
Published on: July 7, 2023
Nature and nurture of human pain
1Departments of Anesthesiology and Human Genetics, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA.
Abstract:
Humans are very different when it comes to pain. Some get painful piercings and tattoos; others can not stand even a flu shot. Interindividual variability is one of the main characteristics of human pain on every level including the processing of nociceptive impulses at the periphery, modification of pain signal in the central nervous system, perception of pain, and response to analgesic strategies. As for many other complex behaviors, the sources of this variability come from both nurture (environment) and nature (genes). Here, I will discuss how these factors contribute to human pain separately and via interplay and how epigenetic mechanisms add to the complexity of their effects.
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