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The Low Road and the High Road of Pain


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Pain processing in the brain follows two separate but interconnected paths, which can be called the high and low processing routes.

Note Text: 1678 Frontal lobe damage disables feeling links

[With frontal lobe damage] The neural systems that would have allowed them to learn what to avoid or prefer are malfunctioning, and are unable to develop responses suitable to a new situation.

Damasio, Antonio R., "Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain", Penguin Books, 1994, 221

Note Text: 1486 Pain is the body's state of health

[V. S. Ramachandran, M.D.] “He [Ramachandran] summed this up as follows: “Pain is an opinion on the organism’s state of health rather than a mere reflexive response to injury.”….So pain, like the body image, is a construct of our brain. [This strikes me as horribly misleading. The nervous system uses the body image to....

Norman Doidge. M.D., "The Brain That Changes Itself", Penguin Books, 2007, 192

Note Text: 1898 Appraisal is complex

Affective consciousness may not be as important in instigating rapid emotional responses as it is in longer-term psychobehavioral strategies.

Panksepp, Jaak, "Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions", Oxford University Press, 1998, 34

Note Text: 1960 Info loops between cortex and limbic repeatedly

In addition to well-organized inputs (afferents) from the thalamus and other cortical areas, the major inputs (efferents) of the cortex are descending circuits back to the thalamus, as well as massive dispersion of information into the basal ganglia (Figure 4.10). The output of the entire cortical mantle to the striatum....

Panksepp, Jaak, "Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions", Oxford University Press, 1998, 74

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