Saturday, April 28, 2007

psychosomatic responses

Why is it that every time I sit down to write, I get really, really tired? I was going to write about pain today, but.....that hasn't worked out. I don't even know where to start! It's such a complex ordeal. On the surface, pain seems like it's just some sensory cells telling the brain that there is an injury. Great! but then when you start studying it, you have to read about how there are various types of these "nociceptors" (pain neurons). Some have myelinated axons with narrow diameters while others have nonmyelinated axons with narrow diameters, and we can't forget the ones with wide axonal diameters. Have you ever noticed how there are multiple sensations of pain--and they are different types of pain--that occur in one incident of injury? There's the initial, ahhh-what's-going-on!!!!-move-your-hand pain, and then there's the throbbing, sentimental, I-told-you-not-to-try-using-the-curling-iron-on-the-cat's-tail pain. It's because the different types of axons send the signals differently! I could spend my lifetime talking about different types of nociceptors and the pain pathways from the stimulus to the brain, but i don't want to! I want to talk about hypnosis as a method of pain management, but i've put so much time in trying to understand what this thing called pain is that I can't waste my work! I think that having an overall understanding of the picture of pain sensation and perception (see, even those two things are completely distinct areas of pain research and inquiry) will be good and perhaps even necessary to talk about how hypnosis could be beneficial. I just have to figure out how....
In the meantime...i really am tired.

2 comments:

Heather said...

I think this blog layout is stifling your character. You are not a black background and no excitement type of person. Maybe it is stifling your research as well.
I'm typing sideways.
Heather

Joel A. Shaver said...

So you take your new, unrelated knowledge, formulate it into an outline for a paper to write "later," then maybe use it for a conference some day.

I agree with Heather... You need a more productive color as your medium. Something like... Beige. The most productive color known to man.

I have an idea- why don't you invite lots of students (who are our friends) to post on this blog? It can become a discussion forum for homework!