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In Our Time: Science

Pain

In Our Time: Science

BBC

History

4.51.4K Ratings

🗓️ 22 July 1999

⏱️ 28 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss pain; something of which everyone has an individual experience. What causes it, how do we cope with it, what mechanisms are involved, what is the traditional view of pain and how is that being challenged today? Do we experience pain in the same way and how is emotional pain different from physical pain? What can our experience of pain tell us about ourselves and human consciousness? Is each individual human experience unique or are there experiences we can say apply across all of human consciousness? Is science a blunt instrument for examining subjective experience?With Patrick Wall, Professor of Physiology at St Thomas’ Hospital, London and author of Pain: The Science of Suffering; Semir Zeki, Professor of Neurobiology at University College, London.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Thanks for downloading the In Our Time podcast. For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.uk.

0:10.0

I hope you enjoy the program.

0:11.0

Hello, I'm joined today by two neurologists, Patrick Wall and Semir Zecki, to look at pain

0:16.8

and subjective experience.

0:19.0

What can our experience of pain tell us about ourselves and about human consciousness. Is each individual

0:24.5

human experience unique or other experiences we say can apply across all of

0:29.3

human consciousness? Patrick Wall is a world expert on the nature of pain and professor of

0:33.8

physiology at St Thomas's Hospital London. He is the co-regenator with Ron

0:38.2

Melzak of the influential gate-control theory of pain, a reversal of the idea that there's a straightforward relationship

0:45.2

between pain and injury. His books include defeating pain, the challenge of pain, and a new book

0:50.8

out this week called simply, Pain, The Signs of Suffering.

0:54.5

Later this year he'll be awarded a Queen's Medal

0:56.9

by the Royal Society.

0:58.5

Professor Samizeki is a renowned neurobiologist

1:01.7

and professor of neurobiology at University College London.

1:05.0

In the 1970s he pioneered the work on vision which caused a revolution in our understanding

1:10.3

of the brain by showing that the brain separated different aspects of vision, form, motion and

1:16.1

color.

1:17.1

Since then, he's examined many different aspects of the brain relating to human consciousness

1:21.5

and art.

1:22.6

He's written about his discoveries in a vision of the brain,

1:25.6

and he has a new book out in the autumn called Inner Vision,

...

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