Gate Control Theory

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The International Association for the Study of Pain states that ‘Pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage’ and can occur as acute or chronic ("IASP Taxonomy - IASP", 2012). As described in gate control theory by Melzack and Wall, (1965), physical pain occurs when noxious stimulation stimulates afferent nociceptors of the peripheral nervous system. There carry these injury signals to the dorsal horn of the spinal cord, which acts as a gate of pain perception. With myelinated A-delta nerve fibers transmits impulses quickly and are associated with sharp, well-located pain and unmyelinated, slow C-fibres are associated with dull, aching pain. In the spinal cord, the nociceptor signals inhibit the inhibitory interneuron and encourage the projection neuron to fire. The gate opens and pain messages get transmitted to the brain. However, efferent, large-diameter amyloid beta fibers can interfere with pain signals from nociceptors and inhibit pain, by activating the inhibitory interneuron, which inhibits the …show more content…

However, this research must take into account the findings of Levine and Lee De Simone (1991), which showed that men admit less pain when the researcher is a woman and that this effect gets amplified as the attractiveness of the female researcher increases. Also, gender role differences disappeared in a study when the participant's cognitive processes, such as catastrophizing, were taken into account, emphasizing personality differences as a factor of pain perception (Keefe et al.,

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