The forehead and fingertips are the most sensitive parts to pain, according to the first map created by scientists of how the ability to feel pain varies across the human body.
It is hoped that the study, in which volunteers had pain inflicted without touching them, could help the people who suffer from chronic pain by allowing physicians to use lasers to monitor nerve damage across the body. This would offer a quantitative way to monitor the progression or regression of a condition.
Dr Roman Cregg, from the UCL Centre for Anaesthesia, who is a clinical expert who treats patients with chronic pain, said the research had important implications for the assessment of chronic pain, which currently tends to rely on asking patients to subjectively describe their discomfort on a scale of one to 10. This method offers an exciting, non-invasive way to test the state of pain networks across the body,” they said.
“Chronic pain is often caused by damaged nerves, but this is incredibly difficult to monitor and to treat. The laser method may enable us to monitor nerve damage across the body, offering a quantitative way to see if a condition is getting better or worse.” — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2014
