April 2, 201016 yr Ouch! The words that are a pain just to read By David Derbyshire Last updated at 8:47 AM on 02nd April 2010 Comments (16) Add to My Stories Sticks and stones may break your bones – but words can hurt you too, a study suggests. Scientists found that reading a list of words associated with agonising experiences triggers a reaction in the part of the brain that handles pain. Although there is no immediate physical response, scientists suspect that hearing such words before experiencing pain could make the sensation worse, as the brain is primed to expect it. Going through a bad spell? Words associated with agony can trigger pain. (Posed by models) For instance, if a dentist talks about ‘drilling’ before he starts doing it, he could actually intensify your discomfort. Professor Thomas Weiss, who led the study, said: ‘These findings show that words alone are capable of activating our pain matrix. 'Our results suggest as well that verbal stimuli have a more important meaning than we have thought so far.’ The team from the department of Biological and Clinical Psychology at the Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, in Germany scanned the brains of 16 volunteers using an fMRI – or functional magnetic resonance imaging – scanner as they read a list of words on a computer screen. Some of the words – such as ‘tormenting’, ‘crampy’ and ‘excruciating’ – were chosen because they are associated with pain. THE PUNCHLINES The words which trigger a painful response in the brain are: Excruciating Paralysing Gruelling Afflicting Nipping Squeezing Drilling Colicky Crampy But others – such as ‘terrifying’, ‘horrible’, and ‘disgusting’ were selected to evoke negative emotions without being directly linked to pain. The researchers also offered a selection of positive or neutral words – such as ‘stroking’ and ‘cuddling’ – to act as controls. The study found that words associated with painful sensations triggered a response in the regions of the brain that process pain. Just reading the words on a computer screen was enough to make the brain ‘relive’ the experience of suffering. However, the other words did not seem to have the same effect, the team report in the journal Pain. Professor Weiss, a psychologist at Jena University, believes the brain quickly learns to connect words like ‘crampy’ and ‘nipping’ with sensations of pain. In the experiment, the words triggered a response in the brain’s pain centres, even when patients were distracted. Fellow researcher Maria Richter said: ‘In a first task, subjects were supposed to imagine situations which correspond to the words. ‘In the second they were distracted by a brainteaser. In both cases we could observe a clear activation of the pain matrix in the brain by pain-associated words,’ she said. The scientists argue that the response may be a survival instinct in which people learn to avoid future pain. The findings could have implications for doctors, dentists and parents. Telling a patient having an injection that they won’t feel pain may actually make them feel worse, the researchers believe. For the same reason, it may also be a bad idea for parents to tell children that ripping off a plaster ‘won’t hurt a bit’. And asking patients to describe their pain could also make them feel worse, the researchers say. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1262981/Ouch-The-words-pain-just-read.html#ixzz0jwTzZ18r
April 2, 201016 yr Author who are they? never heard of them. Then you should count yourself lucky.:lol:
April 2, 201016 yr hmm, interesting study i'm thinking about doing a course that is related to this psychological pain. I want to be a psychologist.
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