20
votes
Accepted
How can tooth enamel feel pain when drilled by a dentist?
Yes you are right. It is the dentin.
Enamel has got no nerves.
So when the dentist use his/her instrument, initially there is no pain (if the enamel is intact).
The next layer is dentin. As you said, ...
- 846
18
votes
Accepted
Is it painful for the hen to lay eggs?
We really don't know - we can't really ask the chicken. At least, it's unlikely it's as painful as it can be with humans.
The reason human birth is (or can be) very painful is that the human baby's ...
- 2,248
16
votes
Accepted
Is it possible to feel pain in some part of a body, but the pain "feeling" is introduced somewhere else?
Yes, this is pretty common. Examples include
sciatica, pain felt down the back of a leg to the foot, from irritation to components of the sciatic nerve but commonly at the level of the sciatic ...
- 794
14
votes
What is the cause that angina pectoris is felt in your left arm?
It has mainly to do with the embryonic origin of organs, with the heart being a typically left sided organ, it develops sharing some nerves with the left thorax and left arm.
There is however high ...
14
votes
Accepted
Inability of vultures to digest diclofenac
Via: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1618889/
Post-mortem examination revealed extensive visceral gout in all diclofenac-treated birds (see electronic supplementary material). ...
- 5,558
8
votes
Accepted
How does Tylenol relieve pain without making me drowsy?
Opiate pain killers or pain killers that act on opioid receptors have a different mechanism of action than NSAIDs. They tend to act as receptor agonists which exert their effect on the CNS (oxycodone ...
- 8,091
8
votes
Do oysters feel pain?
It is very unlikely that oysters feel pain however it's not clear what the question actually means
What does it mean to say something feels pain? The most reductive biological interpretation is to ...
- 6,891
6
votes
Accepted
Reseach on feeling pain of other people
I believe what you are referring to is called 'sympathetic pain,'and the reason you can't find any papers on the subject is because it is not really a well studied concept. That is primarily due to ...
- 534
6
votes
Is it possible to feel pain in some part of a body, but the pain "feeling" is introduced somewhere else?
An example of pain evoked by distant sites in the body is referred pain. It's defined as pain perceived at a location other than the site of the painful stimulus. An example is the case of angina ...
- 52.2k
6
votes
Why is burn feeling 'slower' than touch?
When you touch an object, a compression wave from the collision travels through your body at the speed of sound. A sensor at any depth in your skin can pick up that signal at roughly the same time as ...
- 214
6
votes
Accepted
Do beavers' tails hurt from being dragged?
No, it does not, otherwise beavers wouldn't walk with their tails dragging. Here is a picture of the bottom of a beaver's tail:
Found here
and here is a closeup (probably of the top, but they're very ...
- 15.2k
5
votes
What is the distance between the sciatic nerve and the colon at the closest point?
Short answer
Sciatic nerve pain cannot be caused by a full colon.
background
The sciatic nerve runs at the back of the pelvis down the the leg. The sciatic nerve exits the spine from the lumbar spine ...
- 52.2k
5
votes
What's a mouth ulcer/canker sore "made of", and why do they develop?
The redden area around the grayish-white indentation of the canker sore isn't filled with anything. This circular area is simply inflamed. The grayish-white area in the center is not filled with puss ...
- 2,177
5
votes
Is it possible to feel pain in some part of a body, but the pain "feeling" is introduced somewhere else?
Another common medical condition that causes pain elsewhere is the spinal disc herniation. The disc pushes against the nerves in the spinal and causes pain, usually in the leg, foot or arm. https://en....
- 3,657
5
votes
What is the cause that angina pectoris is felt in your left arm?
Our pain-sensing neurons work in useful ways only when they inform about skin areas or muscles. When nettles sting your left hand, you want to retract your left hand right away. This is in part an ...
- 1,140
5
votes
Do lobsters possess a nervous system to feel pain?
Yes they feel pain, at least in certain areas of their body without a doubt. Research has been done to test whether they feel pain consciously (a signal to the brain that is perceived allows for ...
- 13.9k
5
votes
Do lobsters possess a nervous system to feel pain?
To answer if lobsters have a nervous system:
YES
References:
Mapping of serotonin-like immunoreactivity in the lobster nervous system
BS Beltz, EA Kravitz
Journal of Neuroscience 1 March 1983, 3 (3)...
- 153
4
votes
Accepted
Can nociceptors die because of too much mechanical stress?
As far as I know, adaptation of peripheral receptors, including pain receptors, is transient (Giniatullin & Nistri, 2013)
Instead, my educated guess is that the increase in subjective pain ...
- 52.2k
4
votes
Accepted
At what stage is the nervous system developed enough to interpret neuronal signals as 'pain'?
First, there is some confusion on your part about heart cells and pain perception. Heart cells generate an action potential intrinsically; they do not need the central nervous system to beat (your ...
- 24.7k
4
votes
Accepted
Do lobsters possess a nervous system to feel pain?
Before answer, What intuitively seems:
Lobsters structurally contains sense-organs like eye and antennae, and output organs like muscles through which they move. So plausibly these organs should ...
- 2,669
4
votes
Does spinal cord have pain receptors?
tl;dr
Like the brain, the receptors commonly called 'pain' receptors aren't in the spinal cord itself, but they are present in the meninges around the cord, and damage to the cord can be perceived as ...
- 8,741
3
votes
Accepted
What stimulates a nociceptor?
All of these are affected by specific characteristics of the nociceptors.
Nociceptors are only sensitive to high pressure. The low pressure stimulus would only stimulate mechanoresceptors which ...
- 4,669
3
votes
Why isn't the upper limit of pain lower in humans?
You are assuming that fighting back with a bad wound would be more useful than dropping to the ground. That is not always the case.
Dropping to the ground and ceasing activity is very adaptive in ...
- 24.7k
3
votes
If one endures the same form pain over a long period of time, would the pain begin to lose intensity?
Short answer
Chronic pain may be very persistent and even worsen over time, but it will depend on the underlying pathology. If the pathology disappears over time, so may the pain.
Background
There ...
- 52.2k
3
votes
Accepted
If one endures the same form pain over a long period of time, would the pain begin to lose intensity?
Under the assumption that the temperature experienced is not high enough to simply burn the nerves responsible for the pain (which would lead to insensible regions), yes and it would due to what is ...
- 2,883
3
votes
Most painless method for killing insects
The terrestrial invertebrate taxon advisory group of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums recommends anesthetizing the insects with carbon dioxide and then placing them in a freezer to euthanize them....
- 31
3
votes
Accepted
How do we share pain?
There has been a study by Jackson, Meltzoff & Decety (2005) who investigated the neurocorrelates involved in the perception of pain.
In order to assess this, they carried out an fMRI study in ...
- 2,603
3
votes
Do oysters feel pain?
Referring to this research article on PubMed, oysters have their sensory system and organisation like humans. So any change or invasion in the system of Oyster is communicated through sensory organs. ...
3
votes
Accepted
Laparoscopic surgery: Why did the gas cause pain in my shoulder, and how did it escape my body?
Does CO2 cause pain?
CO2 can cause pain by applying pressure on the diaphragm; also stretching of the diaphragm due to the body position can irritate the phrenic nerve (Indian Journal of Surgery).
...
- 8,049
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible