• Question: Why do we feel pain?

    Asked by robo to Liam on 18 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Liam Bagley

      Liam Bagley answered on 18 Jun 2013:

      Hi robo,

      Good question! We feel pain in many ways and its a sensation we feel to tell our body to stop doing something usually. For example burning ourselves on a kitchen hob, we instantly pull away from it because it hurts so we don’t do damage to ourselves.
      Pain is felt by nerves in the skin and is then transmitted via the sympathetic nervous system to the brain (the central nervous system). The central nervous system then computes what is happening (owww! I’m burning myself!) then transmits a signal called an “action potential” down the nerves to the muscles which control your muscles that are needed to pull away from the pain stimuli. So this is probably your bicep muscle to pull your hand away.
      Pretty clever ey!

      Liam

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