Is it possible???

[newusman]

Salam Alikum.
I have question, not regarding Islam but sort of a brainy one...
In one of my class a professor claimed that there is a speed at which a message is relayed to the brain & if the body is hurt somewhere (by hurt he meant that if some one is nailing the person repeatedly-torture case scenario), so if that nailing is increased beyond the speed at which the message regarding the pain is relayed to the brain then the person will not notice that he is being nailed.
These are not the exact words but just the gist of what he said, I am a bit confused as I never took biology beyond high school, and this was said by a physics professor, as I took physics as a science elective. So if there are any doctors on board inshAllah they can enlighten me
JazakAllahu Khayrun
Wa-Salam

 

[Jihan]

that's not anything i've heard before. But i do know that pain travels to the brain at the same moment as the object causes it. so in the case of the nail. the person would feel it as soon as they were hit with it. this matter has been studied for a long time and scientist have not agreed to a certain theory. some say that pain travels extremely fast to the brain and probably has a "short cut" route because there is an emergency (the pain). and some say that because there seems to be such a fast speed of communication the only it is possible to get the info to the brain this quickly is if the brain some how anticipated the pain in advance. Allahu 'alam either way Allah's creation is wonderful.

 

[ShyHijabi]

Salaam,

I guess we are talking purely theoretical here since the hand cannot move as fast as a action potential (neurological signal). Theoretically if the injury is done over and over again at great speed, greater than the impulse, then yes a person will not "feel" the pain. Technically the person doesn't feel the pain exactly on contact but rather very quickly afterward, since the action potential must travel up the sensory nerves.

I wonder if your professor was talking about traumatic desensitization? Basically when a person is put under great physical torture the body will seek to protect itself and produce endorphins to raise the body's threshold of pain perception.

Pain is still a fairly misunderstood phenomenon in Neurology. I am in med school and we took Neurology last semester and our professor informed us that there is now a field specializing in understanding pain and eventually management as well. The body has the unique ability to reroute pain if the sensory nerve to the area is damaged. Therefore even when a nerve is purposely destroyed to ease the suffering of pain the body will reroute the signal through a diffferent nerve within about 6-12 months. Interesting stuff, eh?

Wasalaam

~Sarah

 

[newusman]

Yup interesting indeed

JazakAllahu khayrun for both the replies. It is interesting, but it didn't settle in my mind very well, nways, thanks.
Wa-Salam