The Genetics Of PainA chat with Pain…

Deepening and revisualizing pain, and deeper revelations of its mechanisms…

The pain hypothesis…

Prostaglandins

• Synthesised from unsaturated

fatty acids.

• Availability of fatty acids in cell

membrane might be genome-

defined.

• Genetic favourability to having

more unsaturated fatty acids.

• The role of lifestyle in the

synthesis and availability of

unsaturated fatty acids.

COX

• Its a protein. Proteins are

synthesised from genes.

• The amount of cycloxygenase

is gene regulated, and the

amino acids involved are also

gene regulated.

• This will affect the intensity of

pain, since cox is responsible

for the synthesis of those

nociceptive stimulants, like

prostaglandins.

Allergies

• There’s a 50% chance of

inheritance of allergies from

parents to offspring.

• Allergies cause severe pain.

So, here is our genome again

on the fore-front of pain

causatives.

Pain and Race

• Melanocytes filter uv light, like

sun rays; thus, preventing skin

cancer on a broad sense, and

sun-burns on a narrow sense,

that could all lead to pain.

• The healing process would be

longer in a black than a white;

since these skin cells need to

synthesise melanin, as visualised

in hyper pigmentation of skin, and

scarring mechanisms.

• We all have the same number of

melanocytes, but not melanin.

Pseudopain?

• Masochists; an interaction

between the lateral

spinothalamic tract and the

limbic system. Overriding some

impulses…

• Mechanical stimuli can inhibit

pain fibres.

Pain and Your Cortex

• Role of frontal cortex in pain

perception.

• Pain adaptation? We have

been told that the fibres

themselves have zero

adaptation, but, do their

interactions with the limbic

system suffer the same fate?

• Throwing light on

ACUPUNCTURE.

Analgia Congenitalis• Mutation in the gene responsible for the

synthesis of Na+ pumps, thus, inability to

transmit pain sensation (nociception).

• Mutation of this gene in olfactory neurones

leads to anosmia.

• Analgia congenitalis can b inherited as an

autosomal recessive congenital disorder.

• If there’s a mutation in the gene responsible

for the synthesis and availability of the

enzyme cox, there’ll be absence of

healing…and maybe, absence of ageing.

The LEGEND OF VAMPIRES.

• The series; HEROES, where a high-school

girl Claire had a similar condition. Maybe

the film-makers where right.

Pro-pain

• Organ failure.

• The viscera could feel some

sort of “pain” that we are not

even aware of.

• Think of asymptomatic stage(s)

of a disease; when your body

fights pain sub-cortically.

THE BRAIN IS THE WHOLE UNIVERSE COMPRESSED INTO A FLUID-FILLED CAVITY…