I’ve written about the science of pain in a previous post. That discussed some interesting findings from studies in the 1940’s and highlighted the difficulty in measuring pain in an objective manner. According to this article on brain imaging, that last part may be about to change. Researchers have managed to train a computer model (via machine learning) to analyze MRI scans and predict the level of pain experienced.
The part I found particularly interesting was that the responses across different patients brains was very uniform. They didn’t have to sample a patients pain at say levels 1 and 2 to be able to predict what that patients brain would look like at level 5 or 6. The same predictive model could be used across all patients. Meaning that they could take an MRI scan in from any patient and accurately estimate the level of pain experienced.
That seems counter-intuitive because we have a concept we call pain tolerance. Some people are as tough as nails and others are delicate daisies. Yet the underlying brain mechanism seems to be fairly uniform. Everyone’s brain fires up in similar ways to similar degrees of stimulus. That suggests to me that people’s baseline tolerance to pain, before endorphins and adrenalin kicks in to modulate the signal, is a learned response. You’re not pre-programmed to have a specific tolerance and presumably it could be modified over time.
I’ll leave you with an image of somebody doing a pain experiment of her own. She seems to have neglected the MRI scanner to measure the exact effects but perhaps this is just a practice run. Judging by his expression she should have no problem getting a reading from him.
I found the image on the Some Husbands Need Discipline tumblr. The original commercial site is sadly now extinct.
The title of your post caught my eye, having recently gone through the wonderful experience of an MRI. I can’t sit still for 60 seconds, how do the expect me to do it for 15 minutes? Valium….that’s how.
Back to your post…so much for the idea of pain tolerance eh? I wonder if pro dommes felt they had clients with a much higher level of pain tolerance than others’? How many “tough subs” would be disappointed by this study? Perhaps it has nothing to do with tolerance. Maybe all pain is the same, but what’s different is how someone deals with it.
Suzanne
An MRI is definitely an interesting experience. It was the loud noise that I found strange. As a submissive I’m kind of used to being told to stay still in one place 🙂
I think for pro-dommes it’d tend to make them less sympathetic to people who cry uncle at the first tap of cane. As for tough subs – it’s kind of a double edged sword. On one hand everyone everyone’s brain is the same, but on the other hand it does suggest that taking more pain is down the individual willpower and mental strength rather than simply being born that way. So that’s kind of a complimentary thing – if they care about that kind of thing at all. It’s not a competition after all.
Of course things like endorphins make a big difference as well. See my latest post for some more thoughts on that!
-paltego