Pain as you know travels to several areas of the brain, of the cortex,  where the neurons are activated for messaging the state of the body,  and where it is stimulated and how the brain has warnings, and the insular cortex, the deep folds that divide the Temporal and frontal lobes operating.  The other site associated with the pain in the cortex is the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) which lies in the groove between the hemisphere. The (ACC) is concerned with the emotional significance of pain  and how much attention is necessary (page 106 Rita Carter “The Brain.”) Pain is so important for survival and sometimes takes adaptation when pain occurs and  triggers almost every part of the brain. 

(1) Pain uses all the motor cortex areas 

(2) the Prefrontal Cortex area

(3) Amygdala 

(4) Pons 

(5) Somatasensory Cortex area which, if you read the last writing, it is a huge area of the brain, and has many pathways, and sensors, such as Pacinian corpuscles, Nocireception, and Proprioceptors.

(6) Posterior Parietal complex

(7) Posterior Cingulate inclusive of all the areas and pathways of commissural, association, and projection pathways, and areas like the cerebrum, cerebellular, the cerebellum, the amygdala, the thalamus, the hypothalamus. So many many areas of the brain are associated with pain, and the brain’s protecting the self by regulating. 

The pain signals travel along many different circuits to hit their target. Some follow the path of nerves that ascend, from areas of the body damaged, while others stem from the brain nuclei such as those from the thalamus, amygdala and the hypothalamus which are combating the effects of the pain stimulus. If you are taking drugs like marijuana, the brain inhibits itself from allowing the thalamus to send signals to the cortex. In fact you are blocking those higher order areas of the brain by taking the marijuana in the first place. The thalamus sends the signal back down to through the pons to the cerebellum area and your pain goes no where. So you are not allowing the brain to protect itself via the pain stimulation, or allowing the brain to combat the effects of the pain stimuli.  

(1) Direct spinal input to areas that monitor the state of the body and prioritize response. 

Coordination areas

Recognition areas

Memory areas

Planning areas

Comprehension areas

Thinking areas

Judging areas

Language areas with meaning. 

Feeling areas that respond in the cortex to Emotion of the amygdala.

All areas of the brain that are triggered by the threshold of the stimulation  – plus initiation of electromagneticvibrational potential to Kinetic energy, are all involved in initiation areas.  

Direct spinal input to initiation, pons, cerebrum, anterior cingulate, thalamus, involved in autoimmune responses – temperature, blood pressure, heart rate, lungs pumping in and out with oxygen for survival, are so very important to know these areas and the importance of them. The spinal areas go back a long way into our history of brain evolution and astrocytes that help create them. 

Arousal and movement areas such as the amygdala area and the Insular cortex, cortical limbic areas, which are involved in evaluation and monitoring of pain, and this is extremely important for the body to adapt and survive. The Cortical Limbic areas that monitor intensity, emotions, and pain memory,  are an absolute necessary to know, for the health of a body. 

Anxiety levels from the amygdala are monitored, pain related or otherwise, like tension, sparking activity of synapses in a way that is associated with experiencing pain The pain may be reduced by the way we think of it. It is in the “nocebo” effect, due to negative thoughts, beliefs or expectations. Descending signals from the cortex can interrupt pain. This can be unconscious or conscious. The cortex itself does not experience the pain, but the thalamus in the middle brain along with the amygdala experiences the pain. But the Cortex contains no pain receptors. That is why surgeons are allowed to operate on the cortex without anaesthesia. Did you know that 1 in every 125 million people, do not feel pain? 

The brain is in constant communication  for the human being, initiating movement,  and has auditory, visual, tasting, touching, olfactory, emotional systems that communicate via the brain to initiate all kinds of movements through out the day, but also trying to protect the operating system from being damaged and trying to adapt to the changes in the environment,  on a constant minute by minute operation right from opening your eyelid. In doing so it initiates movements, in multiple numbers through out the day. It is also aware of slowing down the synapses, vs speeding up the messaging, and the autonomous rates of ongoing, breathing, heart rate, temperature, liver, kidney operations, gastro intestinal operations, penal gland…and on and on of jobs that it does minute by minute, whether  we are consciously aware or not. Some movements are “reflex actions” without signals reaching the cortex, such as the unconscious actions I mentioned as examples. All homeostatic patterns or fractals as some call them in physics, leaving the conscious brain to deal with the outside stimulants in our organic biosphere we must adapt to. 

Planning is a large area of the brain that coordinates, organizes, and processes the electromagneticvibrational potentiality into kinetic energy and action orientation. 

The body’s basic function are carefully regulated in order to maintain a stable environment inside us. The hypothalamus and brainstem work with chemical messages,  called hormones to keep the body functioning mostly unaware. There is regulation of blood flows, heart rates, lungs pumping, and regulated energy storage, being metabolized, liver and kidney functions, bowel functions for waste, as secretion needs brain muscle input.  

Areas in the Wernicke’s, Brodman’s and Brocca’s areas are; 1.2.3. 5,7, 31, 37, 40, for regulating the body and its initiation, it’s potentiality, it’s homeostasis, it’s kinetic energies, it’s planning, coordination, thinking of necessity, the frontal areas, parietal areas, occipital areas, temporal areas,  and anterior areas etc. and the executive function that allows articulation of the awareness, these factors of mapping. 

If you follow the mapping information in the Rita Carter’s book it has page 66, 38, and the subjects of our mapping are there for you to read and follow along. Enjoy your constructive day of knowing “YOU”  and the wonderful mechanical operations of the “self.” 😉 and your Welcome for the share. Carolyn d Hogarth’s… Passion in life. “The Beauty of the Optimum Brain.” Never damage it. 

 

Written by Carolyn D Hogarth Canada