Pain asymbolia, also called pain dissociation, is a condition in which
pain is experienced without
unpleasantness. This usually results from injury to the brain,
lobotomy
A lobotomy, or leucotomy, is a form of neurosurgical treatment for psychiatric disorder or neurological disorder (e.g. epilepsy) that involves severing connections in the brain's prefrontal cortex. The surgery causes most of the connections t ...
,
cingulotomy
Bilateral cingulotomy is a form of psychosurgery, introduced in 1948 as an alternative to lobotomy. Today, it is mainly used in the treatment of depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder. In the early years of the twenty-first century, it was ...
or
morphine
Morphine is a strong opiate that is found naturally in opium, a dark brown resin in poppies (''Papaver somniferum''). It is mainly used as a pain medication, and is also commonly used recreationally, or to make other illicit opioids. T ...
analgesia
Pain management is an aspect of medicine and health care involving relief of pain (pain relief, analgesia, pain control) in various dimensions, from acute and simple to chronic and challenging. Most physicians and other health professional ...
. Preexisting lesions of the insula may abolish the aversive quality of painful stimuli while preserving the location and intensity aspects. Typically, patients report that they have pain but are not bothered by it; they recognize the sensation of pain but are mostly or completely immune to suffering from it. The pathophysiology of this disease revolves around a disconnect between the
insular cortex
The insular cortex (also insula and insular lobe) is a portion of the cerebral cortex folded deep within the lateral sulcus (the fissure separating the temporal lobe from the parietal and frontal lobes) within each hemisphere of the mammalian b ...
secondary to damage and the limbic system, specifically the
cingulate gyrus
The cingulate cortex is a part of the brain situated in the medial aspect of the cerebral cortex. The cingulate cortex includes the entire cingulate gyrus, which lies immediately above the corpus callosum, and the continuation of this in the ...
whose prime response to the pain perceived by insular cortex is to tether it with an
agonizing emotional response thus signaling the individual of its propensity to inflict actual harm. However, a disconnect is not the only prime causative factor, as damage to these aforementioned cortical structures also results in the same symptomology.
[Nikola Grahek]
Feeling pain and being in pain
Oldenburg, 2001. [Phantoms in the Brain by VS Ramachandran — Page 208]
See also
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Physical pain
Pain is a distressing feeling often caused by intense or damaging stimuli. The International Association for the Study of Pain defines pain as "an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with, or resembling that associated with, ...
*
Psychological pain
Psychological pain, mental pain, or emotional pain is an unpleasant feeling (a suffering) of a psychological, non-physical origin. A pioneer in the field of suicidology, Edwin S. Shneidman, described it as "how much you hurt as a human being. I ...
*
Suffering
*
Congenital insensitivity to pain
Congenital insensitivity to pain (CIP), also known as congenital analgesia, is one or more extraordinarily rare conditions in which a person cannot feel (and has never felt) physical pain. The conditions described here are separate from the HSAN ...
References
External links
* http://www.archipel.uqam.ca/2996/1/Frak.PDF
Pain
Neuroscience
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