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Hunger Is a Gatekeeper of Pain in the Brain
- empath75 8y agoEating disorders and self-harm seem to go together a lot so it make sense that there’s an underlying connection between pain and hunger.
- stochastic_monk 8y agoEven those with eating disorders who don’t directly self-harm often state that their behaviors are motivated out of a desire to harm the self. This is very relevant.
- 21 8y agoExcept that the paper seems to find the reverse connection - self-harm is typically acute, and this is not inhibited by hunger.
- yellowapple 8y agoReverse that a bit more: self-inflicted acute pain overrides/inhibits hunger.
- kolpa 8y agoNot all self-harm is acute. For example, eating junk because you hate yourself is not acute.
- banach 8y agoAfter reading Peter Singer's Animal Liberation, I can't help but recoil in disgust at what it must have taken to produce the results for such a paper. Sure, this is interesting, but is it really worth the cost? Did the researchers or those who funded the research even reflect on it?
- mapster 8y agoby the time you've gotten thru grad school, you've most likely have accepted the dogma of animal research. then there's little time for pause as its a mad dash for collecting good data, grants/funding, publishing. of course some funding agencies (NIH) have lab inspections but these can be real or a farce depending.
- 21 8y agoI was watching on YouTube a talk by someone on AI intuitions coming from brain research, and the presenter was casually speaking about an experiment where a cat was sitting there with it's skull open and electrodes inserted into the brain and how the cat did this and that and what they measured.
- firethief 8y agoIt's a one-time cost for knowledge that will have benefits indefinitely. I don't eat or wear animals, but I'd holocaust a million rats to solve the opioid epidemic.
- komali2 8y agoIs the barrier for you species difference? For example, medical insights provided by Nazi scientists, and to a lesser extent Japanese ones, were provided by tests on human subjects with often fatal results.
- velp 8y ago"medical insights". Japanese and Nazi human experiments were hardly scientific. Torture disguised as science does not produce reliable results.
- nine_k 8y agoUnfortunately not. E.g. most of what we know about reactions of human body to extreme cold was found by Nazi scientists in quite unethical, but reasonably scientific ways, for entirely practical military purposes.
- kriffo 8y agoIn before "I tried fasting and meditation while walking to my startup in Palo Alto and I felt sooooo much better"
- krupan 8y agoEarly comments make me think people didn't read the article. Short summary: hunger reduces long-term inflammatory pain but reduce short-term acute pain was not reduced.
- wallace_f 8y agoWhen I first read the title I thought of my observation with the migraines I get. Personally, migraine pain only onsets when 'everything is ok,' in terms of safety, stress, food and hydration; but the other symptoms will start at any time. For example, while rock climbing once, I was getting down from the top of a mountain, seeing those 'squirlly refractive light worms' in my vision that some people with severe migraines get. I had all the symptoms of having a migraine--and was lucky I didn't die on that mountain--but the debilitating pain only came when I was down, in the car, away from danger, with food and water. This is how it always is. Given this experience, I believe there must be a lot more to the psychological-physical aspect if interpretations of pain than what is shown here, and personal experiences may be why others are jumping to conclusions. Also: those poor mice
- dvt 8y ago> For example, while rock climbing once, I was getting down from the top of a mountain, seeing those 'squirlly refractive light worms' in my vision that some people with severe migraines get. I had all the symptoms of having a migraine--and was lucky I didn't die on that mountain--but the debilitating pain only came when I was down, in the car, away from danger, with food and water. This is how it always is. I also suffer from migraines and I've tried different "tricks" to get rid of them or stop getting them altogether. Thankfully, I only get them ~2-3 times a month. (How some people live with chronic migraines is beyond me.) I just wanted to say that I've also noticed this pattern. I have never gotten a migraine in a high-stress or high-stakes situation -- for example, I often get them in the car (maybe attributed to some kind of motion sickness) but never while actually driving. As a side note, I started drinking green tea 2-3 times a day which has decreased attacks by ~60% (I keep a log).
- 8y ago
- DoctorOetker 8y agoso incoming pain signal is filtered through low-pass and high-pass filters, the intermediate output from the low-pass is modulated by hunger and then added to the unmodified high-pass signal. this sum is the effective or subjective pain signal. perhaps this could be used for online learning neural networks (with neural plasticity): goals are eventual and dont need to be accutely achieved upon the moment of forming the goal (i.e. feeding can be postponed), while punishment of the neural network should be accute in order to focus on the problem while any information related to the problem is still present in the brain.
- firethief 8y agoI think low-pass/high-pass is sort of a misleading simplification. When they say "chronic" pain they're referring to inflammatory pain, which is distinguished from "acute" pain by its source, not its time course. (I think. Not a biologist.)
- contoraria 8y agoDifferent sources might use different time codes. Anyway, inflammation likely attacks all kinds of sensors and perhaps nerves directly, so the signal is noisy, and the high frequency constituents very unstable. Whereas functioning receptor networks likely fire in ensemble, so that signal should be kind of clear. The functionally intact rim of an inflammation is a comparably large area, so that would correspond to a low frequency signal. Although, it's much more complicated, surely, I wouldn't know. Also, hunger after a long time becomes a dull feeling, too. Less energy -> longer time to light a synapse.
- yellowapple 8y ago"The body’s basic needs include a timely supply of nutrients and the avoidance of tissue damage, which are signalled in the brain by hunger and pain, respectively. But these needs cannot be fulfilled simultaneously, because their resolution involves mutually exclusive behaviours." Hold up. Why are these mutually-exclusive? Is nutrient intake not a subset of tissue damage avoidance? I think I get the gist of what these sentences are trying to say (acute pain takes precedence over hunger, which takes precedence over chronic pain), but that's not what "mutually exclusive" means.
- erentz 8y agoI took it to be in more evolutionary terms: * If you’re hungry you need to move to find food * If you’re in chronic pain you need to rest to heal
- danharaj 8y agoI wonder if there are people who overeat because of chronic pain.
- tajen 8y agoWould you consider depression or lack of affection a kind of chronic pain ;) ?
- amerkhalid 8y agoit would be other way around, they will eat less to dampen chronic pain.
- Arbitrary456456 8y agoI imagine they'd put off eating as long as they could, and then give into the hunger.
- sametmax 8y agoThe thing is, with health, if the effect of you action are not immediat, you are much less likely to do the right thing. E.g : i know that if a drink a lot of raw milk i generally get a migraine. But it happens 24 to 48 h later. So i still drink milk from time to time because i'm not punished immediatly. It's future me's problem.
- taneq 8y agoAh, the old causey-effecty switcheroo.
- ravitation 8y agoAnecdotally, I find the dopamine hit of eating (a lot unhealthy food) is a worth more to me to any dampening effects. Because while I might be in slightly less discomfort, I'm still in discomfort but also hungry...
- jacobush 8y agoI am sorry I can't parse this. You rather eat and keep the pain?
- eloff 8y agoConsuming food is an inherently inflammatory process. Could this not explain the results?
- sridca 8y agoFasting is known to reduce inflammation
- vinayan3 8y agoIf you have persistent stomach pain not eating can sometimes do the trick if you suffer from digestive inflammation. The inflammation can be triggered by eating the wrong combination and or quantities of certain foods.
- raziel2701 8y agoWhat does it mean for eating to be an inflammatory process? Is a specific part of the body being inflamed? I keep reading news about inflammation but it's never been clear to me what it's meant when articles say that such and such activities reduce/increase inflammation.
- dredmorbius 8y agoSource / support?
- ohiovr 8y agoWhen I eat certain foods I have to blow my nose. Is that an immune response? Dad also had this problem.
- intralizee 8y agoI'm curious if the word, "hunger" is a poor choice in comparison of using "lack of food" and because I rarely eat in comparison to most people. I've become accustomed to not having hunger overtime as a result of fasting and otherwise one meal per day. I do believe the gateway of pain is true.
- AndyNemmity 8y agoGreat point, fasting over a period of time lowers Ghrelin
- croon 8y agoI've done the same over many years, and can confirm being accustomed. I have very different sensations now signalling "lack of food" and "craving for stuff I don't need", and the latter isn't as persuasive anymore.
- holri 8y agoNice that the very old natural medicine knowledge of starving and chronic pain reduction is confirmed. Unfortunately the exploration of old natural medicine knowledge is not well funded because there is no money to earn.
- nuclx 8y agoSomewhat related recommended read: Hunger (Knut Hamsun) [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32585.Hunger https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32585.Hunger
- known 8y ago"Our minds are like our stomachs; they are whetted by the change of their food, and variety supplies both with fresh appetites" --Quintilian
- pbhjpbhj 8y agoThis is expected: if you get very hungry then food acquisition is more important than avoiding relatively minor bodily damage. If damage is severe, then it can override the need to get food. If it were not this way we'd be pretty rubbish at surviving.
- alexandercrohde 8y agoIs it possible the particular rat-food causes inflammation? I'd imagine whatever they're being fed isn't their natural diet (i.e. organic raw meat etc)