2024-01-02 18:17:00
In 2009, Canadian psychologist Robert Sorge conducted research on how animals develop hypersensitivity to touch due to chronic pain. In one experiment, mice’s paws were pricked with fine hairs. The males reacted by instantly twitching their paws, while the females seemed to feel nothing. This has led researchers to speculate that different pain pathways in males and females play a role in this response.
Pain studies typically use only male mice, with the belief that hormonal fluctuations in females can complicate the results. Sorge, breaking this rule, decided to include both sexes in his research.
The mechanisms of pain perception are complex: receptors on the skin, muscles, joints and organs register potentially dangerous signals, such as high temperature or tissue damage. These signals are sent along peripheral nerves to the spinal cord and then to the cerebral cortex, where they are interpreted as the sensation of pain.
Although pain appears uniform, the processes by which pain is formed are different. There is an emergency response to noxious stimuli, as well as chronic pain, which is characterized by hypersensitivity to normally non-painful stimuli.
A 2009 study by Sorge and colleagues focused on chronic pain caused by inflammation and the use of a lipopolysaccharide molecule. As a result of inflammation, microglial immune cells were activated only in males, while this was not observed in females. This explained the difference in response to touch by fine hairs.
Next, the researchers damaged the sciatic nerve in both sexes of mice, resulting in chronic pain. Although both groups became hypersensitive to touch, differences remained.
The question of what controls switching between different pain pathways has long intrigued researchers. Differences in pain perception have been frequently associated with estrogen, controlling the development of reproductive organs and regulating the menstrual cycle. However, testosterone has previously received less attention.
The work of Mogil and Sorge indicates that testosterone plays a key role in switching pain pathways. Castration of males reduced their sensitivity to the level of females, and the administration of testosterone to both males and castrated males switched pain sensitivity to the “male” pathway.
Understanding how pain pathways work in humans is difficult, but some evidence has emerged. Neuropharmacologist Ted Price discovered that in humans, immune cells influence the perception of pain. Studies on nerve tissue of cancer patients have shown that in men, inflammation is caused by macrophages, and in women, nerve cells and amino acids play an important role, stimulating the growth of nervous tissue. This may imply the need for different approaches to pain management in men and women.
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