Summary
Mystery still surrounds the experience of pain. It is highly subjective but why do some people feel more pain than others and why does the brain appear to switch off under anaesthesia so we are unaware of the surgeon’s scalpel? Professor Irene Tracey uses brain scanners to ask if we can actually see pain in the brain. On air we hear for the first time the results of the latest research into diabetes and nerve pain. Promising new techniques means scientists are able to see regions in the brain which effectively turn up the pain in some people and not others.
Anaesthetics prevent pain during surgery but how the brain disengages is only just beginning to be understood, which could in the future lead to personalised doses of anaesthetics leading to faster recovery times.
Picture: Graphic of neurons firing in the of the neural network within the Brain, Credit: Science Photo Library
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
| 0:04.7 | My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds. |
| 0:08.5 | As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices. |
| 0:18.0 | What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars, |
| 0:24.6 | poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples. |
| 0:29.7 | If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds. |
| 0:36.0 | This is the BBC. |
| 0:41.0 | Well, living with the pain is rather traumatic sometime. |
| 0:47.0 | It's difficult to say... |
| 0:49.0 | Cecil Pantron's pain is long-term unpredictable and excruciating. It dominates his life. |
| 0:54.3 | And you have that pain and it generates from all through the body and walking becomes difficult and your joints as if the joints is dried out. |
| 1:08.0 | You know it's difficult. |
| 1:11.0 | My name is Irene Tracy and as Nuffield Professor of Anesthetic Sciences I spent |
| 1:16.0 | the last 20 years unraveling the complexities of pain. I've heard many stories of people who |
| 1:21.4 | live with chronic pain and I've also done my fair share of |
| 1:24.6 | burning, prodding and poking people to try and understand pain better. |
| 1:29.2 | The thing about pain is it's a highly individual subjective experience. Some people can cope fantastically with it, even with immense pain, |
| 1:37.0 | whereas others are in agony to what peers like a minor injury. |
| 1:41.0 | So here in this four-part series for Discovery from the BBC |
| 1:44.4 | Wool service I want to introduce you to my world, my colleagues and how we are |
| 1:49.6 | slowly beginning to see pain in the brain. So although you might feel the ache or the stab in your |
| 1:55.7 | stub toe or your bruised rib, the pain is actually being processed into brain, so that is the |
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