Where do you feel pain..

OK, I think this is pretty interesting and maybe you will too. Today we learned again about visceral and somatic pain. The way I tell the difference between these is somatic pain is specific pain. It is easy to localize and these receptors are found in places that have a lot of nerve receptors (because they are use to being touched). So you finger would have somatic or specific pain receptors. Visceral pain is vague pain. These receptors are located in areas that normally don't need to tell you what's going on except when something is wrong. So visceral or vague pain receptors generally only transmit pain (aren't they sweet).

Now, to go one step further...stay with me here. Here's where it gets good. Somatic (specific) sensation is pretty important because it usually tells us a lot more than just pain. It is our general sense of touch. So somatic (specific) receptors can have their own relay station in the brain, or it can share a relay station with the visceral (vague) receptors. But the visceral (vague) receptors always have to share because they aren't nearly important enough to have their own relay station like the specifics.

Because of the sharing of relay stations, this is where we get referred pain. When you have a tooth ache, your body is telling you that the area below your teeth is having a problem. This area generally doesn't tell you anything and so when it does speak up, it's always to tell you that there is a problem. Because this part of the body is usually silent and is going to a shared relay station the brain sometimes will say that the specific fibers in the relay station are the ones that are firing, like the ear, which seems to share a spot with the teeth. This is how tooth pain can feel like ear pain. Also interesting is that somatic (specific) pain trumps visceral (vague) pain every time. Vague pain can be mistaken for somatic but somatic is way too important to be mistaken for vague pain. Pretty cool, huh?