0:00
So I'm Professor Tony Dickenson
from University College London.
And this presentation is based
on receptors and channels
in pain, how the integrated function
of the nervous system, subjects
to painful messages, deals
with these external events.
0:20
Pain is an intriguing example of
understanding and trying to gauge
how external events, in this
case from the body, impact
upon function of the
central nervous system.
So peripheral events,
peripheral sensory fibers,
project into the spinal cord.
The spinal cord then sends
messages up to the higher centers.
And in the case of
pain, of course, it's
an individual, personal
experience that is built up.
But what goes up, also comes down.
And so the higher
centers of the brain
are able to alter mechanisms
within the brain stem
and change what we call
descending controls, which,
in turn, return to the spinal cord.
And so the higher centers have
the ability to modulate events
at the first synapse
within the spinal cord.
