Tag Archives | Pain

Existential Despair? Take Two of These and Call Me in the Morning

By Matt Staggs on April 19, 2013 in News 0

Please don’t give Tylenol to your existentially-challenged cat.

Interesting research from the University of British Columbia: Apparently Tylenol can also ease aches and pains of the existential kind. Look for new Sartre strength in the “Ennui” aisle of your local drug store:

New research this week found that Tylenol altered the way subjects passed moral judgements. Psychologists used that as a proxy measure for personal distress, a relationship that has been previously demonstrated. Daniel Randles and colleagues at the University of British Columbia write in the journal Psychological Science, “The meaning-maintenance model posits that any violation of expectations leads to an affective experience that motivates compensatory affirmation. We explore whether the neural mechanism that responds to meaning threats can be inhibited by acetaminophen.” Totally. More plainly, “Physical pain and social rejection share a neural process and subjective component that are experienced as distress.” That neural process has been traced to the same part of the brain.

… Read the rest

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“They” Told Me to Write This (Continued)

By Thad McKraken on April 11, 2013 in News 0

Who are they? Insectile hive mind derivative entities? Beings from the Sirius conglomerate of planetary intelligence systems? Holy Guardian Angels? Unholy Protector Daemons? They can be all of these things, and for the second time since I’ve been writing for Disinfo they reached into my psychic life, compelling me to blog about a specific subject matter. The problem is that unlike the last time, I honestly couldn’t understand the message entirely as it wasn’t as neatly succinct. Okay, it’s not like I didn’t understand the message, I just have a hard time wrapping my head around it for means of convenient articulation.

In fact, I’m honestly just managing to put it all together, sort of. For a while, I’d been contemplating creating what in magick circles is referred to as a servitor. The basic idea behind this concept is that it’s sort of like a software program you install into the interlocking grid of human consciousness.… Read the rest

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The Snake Venom That’s Better Than Morphine

By majestic on October 4, 2012 in News 6

One wonders what a Black Mamba high might be like (although the story seems to suggest there might not be one) … from BBC News:

A painkiller as powerful as morphine, but without most of the side-effects, has been found in the deadly venom of the black mamba, say French scientists.

The predator, which uses neurotoxins to paralyse and kill small animals, is one of the fastest and most dangerous snakes in Africa.

However, tests on mice, reported in the journal Nature, showed its venom also contained a potent painkiller.

They admit to being completely baffled about why the mamba would produce it.

The researchers looked at venom from 50 species before they found the black mamba’s pain-killing proteins – called mambalgins.

Dr Eric Lingueglia, from the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology near Nice, told the BBC: “When it was tested in mice, the analgesia was as strong as morphine, but you don’t have most of the side-effects.”

Morphine acts on the opioid pathway in the brain.

… Read the rest

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What It’s Like Living Without The Ability To Feel Pain

By JacobSloan on July 18, 2012 in News 4

A reminder that suffering has its purpose? 31-year-old Steven Pete was born with congenital analgesia – a rare genetic disorder rendering him unable to experience pain, though he has a sense of touch. Via the BBC, he explains that life without pain is a curse:

Steven Pete and his brother were born with the rare genetic disorder congenital analgesia. They grew up – in Washington state – with a sense of touch but, as he explains in his own words, without ever feeling pain.

It first became apparent to my parents that something was wrong when I was four or five months old. I began chewing on my tongue while teething. They took me to a paediatrician where I underwent a series of tests.

During my early childhood I was absent from school a lot due to injury and illness. There was one time, at the roller-skating rink. I can’t recall all of the details, but I know that I broke my leg.

… Read the rest

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Gene Found That Controls Chronic Pain

By Pelliciari on September 9, 2011 in News 3

800px-Back-decompression Popping pain killers may not be the answer, not if you can isolate and alter the gene which regulates chronic pain. Via Reuters:

British scientists have identified a gene responsible for regulating chronic pain, called HCN2, and say their discovery should help drug researchers in their search for more effective, targeted pain-killing medicines.

“Our research lays the groundwork for the development of new drugs to treat chronic pain by blocking HCN2.”

Scientists from Cambridge University said that if drugs could be designed to block the protein produced by the gene, they could treat a type of pain known as neuropathic pain, which is linked to nerve damage and often very difficult to control with currently available drugs.

“Individuals suffering from neuropathic pain often have little or no respite because of the lack of effective medications,” said Peter McNaughton of Cambridge’s pharmacology department, who led the study.

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Sex On The Brain: Orgasms Unlock Altered Consciousness

By imkaan on May 17, 2011 in News 12

Kayt Sukel writes in New Scientist:

With a click and a whirr, I am pulled into the scanner. My head is strapped down and I have been draped with a blanket so that I may touch my nether regions — my clitoris in particular — with a certain degree of modesty. I am here neither for a medical procedure nor an adult movie. Rather, I am about to stimulate myself to orgasm while an fMRI scanner tracks the blood flow in my brain.

My actions are helping Barry Komisaruk at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey, and colleagues to tease apart the mechanisms underlying sexual arousal. In doing so, not only have they discovered that there is more than one route to orgasm, but they may also have revealed a novel type of consciousness — an understanding of which could lead to new treatments for pain.

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Swearing Helps Ease The F*!#ing Pain

By Pelliciari on April 18, 2011 in News 28

Profanity From Tiffany Sharples via TIME:

There is a certain four-letter word that evokes much emotion, is often uttered by mothers giving birth, and whose usage by humans is thought to be evolutionarily adaptive: f___!

According to a new study by British researchers, saying the F word or any other commonly used expletive can work to reduce physical pain — and it seems that people may use curse words by instinct. Indeed, as any owner of a banged shin, whacked funny bone or stubbed toe knows, dancing the agony jig — and shouting its profane theme tune — are about as automatic as the response to a doctor’s reflex hammer. (See 20 ways to get healthy and stay that way.)

To figure out why, psychologists at Britain’s Keele University recruited 64 college students and asked them to stick their hands in a bucket of ice water and endure the pain for several minutes.

… Read the rest

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Meditation Seriously Reduces Pain

By majestic on April 5, 2011 in News 8

Photo: Beyond My Ken (CC)

You have to imagine the big pharmaceutical companies are freaking out over this new study. Or perhaps coming up with drugs to induce a meditative state (but with a ton of side effects). Anne Harding reports for CNN:

You don’t have to be a Buddhist monk to experience the health benefits of meditation. According to a new study, even a brief crash course in meditative techniques can sharply reduce a person’s sensitivity to pain.

In the study, researchers mildly burned 15 men and women in a lab on two separate occasions, before and after the volunteers attended four 20-minute meditation training sessions over the course of four days. During the second go-round, when the participants were instructed to meditate, they rated the exact same pain stimulus — a 120-degree heat on their calves — as being 57 percent less unpleasant and 40 percent less intense, on average.

… Read the rest

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Cleansing The Soul By Hurting the Flesh: The Guilt-Reducing Effect of Pain

By Good German on March 8, 2011 in News 0

Lent personified at a Carnival celebration. Detail of 1559 painting "The Battle between Carnival and Lent" by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

"Lent personified at a Carnival celebration" by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1559)

From ScienceDaily:

Lent in the Christian tradition is a time of sacrifice and penance. It also is a period of purification and enlightenment. Pain purifies. It atones for sin and cleanses the soul. Or at least that’s the idea. Theological questions aside, can self-inflicted pain really alleviate the guilt associated with immoral acts?

A new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, explores the psychological consequences of experiencing bodily pain.

Psychological scientist Brock Bastian of the University of Queensland, Australia and his colleagues recruited a group of young men and women under the guise they were part of a study of mental and physical acuity. Under this pretense, they asked them to write short essays about a time in their lives when they had ostracized someone; this memory of being unkind was intended to prime their personal sense of immorality — and make them feel guilty.

… Read the rest

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Do Tasers Hurt?

By majestic on May 4, 2010 in News 9

Seems like a stupid question right? But remember the old saying, ‘there are no stupid questions, only stupid answers…’ From Discovery News:

Since the advent of our nation’s pastime, there has been a longstanding tradition of the fan who thinks it will be just HILARIOUS to jump onto a baseball diamond and get his or her 15 minutes of fame before getting tackled by security guards.

On Monday, 17-year-old Steve Consalvi decided to do just that during a Philadelphia Phillies game.

Except this time, the overzealous fan who told his dad he was looking for a “once in a lifetime experience” got a little more than he bargained for: he got Tasered. It’s the first time a Taser has been used to stop a spectator who’s running on the field.

The kid’s OK, and now the Phillies and Philadelphia police are investigating whether the officer’s use of the Taser was appropriate…

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