Is pain a sense or a emotion ?

[Fujing]

It is now generally accepted that pain is a sense,and the emotion of pain(includes primary unpleasantness and secondary pain affect) is a concomitant.But we also should not be excluded out the possibility that the pain is an emotion, not a sense,and the primary unpleasantness is pain itself,and so-called sense of pain is composed of the primary unpleasantness ( non-specific emotion ) and the specific sense to the position of a body part ( and others mechanical senses ).

this we will might be prompted from Damasio had participated in that experiment ( The Feeling of What Happens [P:74 to 76] ).But unfortunately I have not read the original English language texts.

[Diane]

Hi Fujing,
We moved your thread into a more public area.
Perhaps you would like to visit the Welcome Forum and tell us a little bit about yourself, who you are, what sort of work you do.

You've opened up a large topic - I wonder if you've read anything by A.D. Craig - he calls pain a homeostatic emotion. Damasio is definitely someone to read on this. Mountcastle's book, the Sensory Hand, addresses the emotional evaluation of peripheral input by the brain. The brain pathways for pain and for emotion are not cleanly delineated in any way.

[Fujing]

Hi Diane,

Many thanks for your reply. I am not a professional, but I am very interested in brain science, especially with respect to the neural-psychological mechanism of emotion.I wrote this topic was because saw here had some in-depth discussions about pain and Damasio's book.

Having read your reply,I had find some theories by Craig and others on the net.It's been a very rewarding,so thank you!

Craig's“the human feeling of pain is both a distinct sensation and a motivation - that is, a specific emotion that reflects homeostatic behavioral drive,” which is coincident with Damasio's“any feeling is composed of two psychological components,one is the first-order map,the other is an accompanying emotion.（ I am not read the original English language texts,so this is my interpretation.”I also read an article Pain Encoding in the Human Forebrain,in which shows that:“pain is the unpleasant emotion produced by disequilibrium of the internal state.” According to above these，the pain is a emotion was supported by recent researches. But in the feeling of pain, what is sense? what is emotion? I think there is very important to tell them apart.In fact, people already have a basic understanding of the neural pathway of the senses and the emotions. Simply speaking,the senses are from specific neural pathway, they are directly transmitt to different sensory area of cortex after they via thalamus, such as these senses from vision, hearing and the mechanical senses of body,etc;the emotions are from non-specific neural pathway,they are first into amygdala after they via thalamus,and then projection to cortex. Moreover,the emotional projection is diffuse in cortex which is also different from the senses.

[Diane]

(http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content...8221;According to above these，the pain is a emotion was supported by recent researches. But in the feeling of pain, what is sense? what is emotion? I think there is very important to tell them apart.In fact, people already have a basic understanding of the neural pathway of the senses and the emotions. Simply speaking,the senses are from specific neural pathway, they are directly transmitt to different sensory area of cortex after they via thalamus, such as these senses from vision,hearing and the mechanical senses of body,etc;
the emotions are from non-specific
neural pathway,they are first into amygdala after they via thalamus,and then projection to cortex.Moreover,the emotional projection is diffuse in cortex which is also different from the senses.

I think everyone wonders the same thing.
Maybe part of what pain is, is some kind of unwelcome synesthesia in the associative cortex, kind of like automatically seeing a particular color associated with a particular number.

Fujing, even if you are not a therapist of any kind, we would still like to know you, so please consider starting a thread about yourself in the welcome forum (see link in post 2).

[Fujing]

1、Craig's“the human feeling of pain is both a distinct sensation and a motivation –that is, a specific emotion that reflects homeostatic behavioral drive,similar to temperature, itch, hunger and thirst."
2、Damasio's “any feeling is composed of two psychological components,one is the first-order map,the other is an accompanying emotion. ”
3、Fred et al：“pain is the unpleasant emotion produced by disequilibrium of theinternal state.”

Put these together, can we then come to the following conclusion? When the emotion (unpleasant or pleasant) is produced by some stimuluses, if it is the sensation of body that hang together with the emotion , it will form the physical feeling such as skin Pain, hunger, thirst and all kinds of physical pleasure, etc;If it is not only the sensations of body that hang together with the emotion，but also some theperception to external objects and self-consciousness etc,it will form the feelings such as fear,sadness,shyness ,love,interest，and happiness etc.

[Diane]

Those are good thoughts, and likely along the right track. But I do not think it's possible to wrap up the concept quite yet. Certainly first order maps based on perceptual input (like visual data, percepts, and auditory percepts, smalls and so on) are assigned meanings which have been learned - non-consciously - and from then on, they are capable of eliciting emotional feeling..
Somesthesis is somewhat more complex and so far less well-studied. How meaning is assigned to somesthesis (or to any other first order input, really) or how "pain" is generated as an output is still a mystery.. most of the association cortex is fully mylinated and established before executive function is fully developed into the third decade, so for sure the emotional parts of the brain have a good head start.

[Fujing]

Many thanks for your this reply. But it is indeed a tough exam for my English.

[Fujing]

In the book The Feeling of What Happens, Damasio attempts to semantic separation of emotion and feeling. I think that sincewe have already known that the emotion is just a component part of feeling，it is very necessary that distinguish between them in academic research for furthering studies on them. Obviously, the many difficulties in emotion research have much to do with we mixed up the two.

For a long time people believe认为 that the fear, anger, love and shyness etc of feeling them are all the feeling to a kinds of holistic emotion ,or called them emotional feeling. For example, the feeling of fear, it is generally agreed that the fear is one of the basic emotion, and it is a feeling to the emotion of fear or it is the emotional feeling of fear, and it is a perception to the activated state of the neural pathway of fear emotion. However, on the understanding of the feeling is composed of emotions and sensations, the fear, anger and shyness etc of feeling will be no longer only the perception to an emotion, and can only speak the perception of emotion it is only one of component in these feeling.So, strictly speaking,the feeling of fear,shyness and love etc,they should not continue be regarded as the feeling to emotion,and it can only say that in which contain the emotion. the feeling of fear, it should be the feeling which is composed of the emotion from non-specific neural pathway, the sensations of muscular tension and heart-pounding from specific neural pathway and the sensations to outside objects. Such it will helps me to study and explain their neuropsychological mechanism.