4.7 • 7.3K Ratings
🗓️ 21 April 2025
⏱️ 167 minutes
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Sean Mackey is a professor of pain medicine at Stanford University and the director of the Stanford Systems Neuroscience and Pain Lab, where his research explores the neural mechanisms of pain and the development of novel treatments for chronic pain. In this episode, Sean joins Peter for a wide-ranging discussion on the multifaceted nature of pain—as both a sensory and emotional experience—and its evolutionary purpose as a critical survival mechanism. He dives into how pain is transmitted through the nervous system, the different types of pain, and why different individuals perceive pain so differently. Sean shares insights into pain management strategies ranging from medications like NSAIDs and opioids to neuromodulation techniques such as transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS). Additionally, this episode explores the interplay between sleep and chronic pain and the psychological and emotional dimensions of pain, and it includes a personal story from Peter about his own experience with pain and how Sean’s expertise helped him more than two decades ago.
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1:04.1 | I guess this week is Dr. Sean Mackie. |
1:07.1 | Sean is a professor of pain medicine at Stanford University. He also serves as the director |
1:13.3 | of the Stanford Systems Neuroscience and Pain Lab. His research focuses on the neural |
1:17.8 | mechanisms of pain and the development of innovative treatments for chronic pain conditions. |
1:23.5 | In this episode, I talk a little bit about how Sean and I go way back and why it is that I really wanted to have Sean on this episode. |
1:30.9 | In this episode, we discussed the definition of pain as both a sensory and an emotional experience and why it's fundamental as a survival mechanism and the evolutionary purpose of pain, which obviously has been highly conserved across multiple species. |
1:43.2 | We talk about how pain is |
1:44.5 | transmitted through the nervous system, including the different types of fibers that are involved. |
1:49.2 | Talk about the different types of pain, such as no susceptible pain, visceral pain, neuropathic pain, |
1:54.0 | etc. We talk about why pain perception varies so widely from person to person, even in the face |
2:00.0 | of an identical stimulus, how psychological |
2:02.2 | and emotional factors play a role into this. We talk about various approaches to pain management, |
2:06.2 | including enseds, opioids, and anti-neuropathic medications. We talk about the effectiveness of neuromodulation |
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