Headache is the technical name for headache. But the head includes many structures, including the brain. Now, can the brain feel pain? In short, what hurts us when we have a headache?
The head includes the bones of the skull, the skin and muscles that it covers, the entire brain, and the venous and nervous structures that circulate there. The brain is one more organ of the brain and, therefore, only a portion of the head.
The origin of headaches is multiple. Sometimes there are trivial headaches, caused by a little fatigue or stress and nothing else. Other times, the headache is a sign of a serious illness, such as stroke.
To know if the brain can feel pain, we first have to consider whether or not there are pain receptors in the brain tissue. Areas of the body without these receptors are unable to produce pain.
The brain has no pain receptors
Pain receptors are called nociceptors. These are sensory structures, that is, they are associated with the possibility of feeling something. When a stimulus activates the nociceptor, there may be a sensation of pain.
Nociceptors are present in various tissues, but not in the brain. When these receptors are stimulated, for example by touching something hot, they transmit the pain signal to the brain through the spinal cord.
There are nociceptors outside our body, in the skin, and inside, in certain organs. There are also mucous membranes with these receptors and tissues such as muscle that contain nociceptors inside.
The brain, then, cannot feel pain. It will receive the information that comes to it from the nociceptors distributed throughout the body and it will interpret it, but it will not be brain pain. Its neighboring structures do have nociceptors, such as the meninges.
By not having pain receptors, the brain can be operated with local anesthesia, as is done in many neurosurgeries. The skull cap is opened and the brain is worked on with the patient awake, since the surgeon’s interventions do not cause pain there.
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