An Algorithm to Remove “Hurt” from PainWritten by Abraham Thomas
The behavior of pain was enigmatic. Its responses were strange. It was only a pin prick, but surrounding skin reddened and child cried out in pain. Yet, caress of a gentle finger around injury subdued that pain. A person suffering from agony of chronic pain reported no pain at all, while focused on painting a canvas. Again, hypnosis caused a patient to report that his pain did not hurt. How could just a touch, or a change in focus of attention reduce or remove pain? How could there be a pain, which did not hurt? Could such phenomena be explained as clear algorithmic behaviors of brain? Could such knowledge be used to subdue distress of pain?An algorithm was a repetitive procedure, which yielded a trusted result. Recently, a new view of mind suggested that it was an algorithm, which enabled mind to race, like a lightning streak, through neural regions. It saw, recognized, interpreted and acted. In blink of eye. From input to output, it took just 20 milliseconds. Myriad processes converted light, sound, touch and smell instantly into your nerve impulses. A special region recognized those impulses as objects and events. Another region, limbic system, interpreted those events to generate emotions. A fourth region responded to those emotions with actions. The mind perceived, identified, evaluated and acted. So, scream followed injury, as swiftly as a flash of lightning. All of this was powered by intuition, a pattern recognition algorithm. The algorithmic view received support recently, when science discovered that animals instantly differentiated between millions of smells through combinatorial coding. That discovery won a Nobel Prize in 2004. If a nerve cell had dendritic inputs, identified as A, B, C and so on to Z, it could then fire, when it received inputs at ABC and DEF. The cell could be inhibited for XYZ. It only recognized some combinations. ABC and DEF. A recognition algorithm. This new view of mind suggested that such combinatorial coding enabled all regions of mind to respond instantly and logically to incoming information. Such pattern recognition was intuition. Even with pain, mind perceived, recognized, interpreted and acted. The brain perceived tissue injuries through nociceptors. A neuron, which carried this pain message had many incoming dendrites. These branches informed it of neighborhood pain, touch, tension and much more. The neuron received a kaleidoscopic combinations of inputs. If neuron responded to combinatorial coding, it could fire for neighborhood pain to report sympathetic pain. Sympathetic responses by neighboring pain reporting neurons could increase child's sensation of pain of a pinprick. The neuron could become inhibited when it received a touch message. The combinatorial coding algorithm could explain how child's pain reduced, when its parent caressed regions surrounding injury.
| | Benefits of Alternative MedicineWritten by Ruby Boyd
With growing number of people being affected by newly discovered chronic degenerative diseases such as AIDS and chronic fatigue syndrome, Are you worried or wondering....Is it possible to maintain good health? What your body needs to function properly? Why conventional medicine is becoming more complicated and costly and in some cases simply ineffective? A growing number of people are turning to alternative medicine and natural healing--simple, traditional low-tech methods of preventing illnesses and solving everyday health problems? Do you have unanswered questions on.... Why are people flocking to health food stores, with their lotions and potions, and what keeps them going back for more? What to do if you or someone in your family falls ill? Are these therapies really old wives tales or can they really work? Even mainstream doctors have begun to recommend natural drugless therapies' to treat both everyday complaints and serious illnesses. Dietary modifications, for instance, has become weapons of choice against a number of diseases that would have been treated mainly with prescription drugs a generation ago. It is now known that many conditions are caused by wrong diet and can be reversed by right diet. Heart disease, cancer, weight problems, arthritis, diabetes, high blood pressure--they can all be treated to some degree with foods. Natural therapies found in alternative medicine are actually much older than Western treatments such as surgeries and antibiotics. Experts estimate that herbal remedies and Ayurveda, traditional medicine of India, has been around for 5,000 years. Many alternative medicine remedies began with scientific research or clinical impressions reported by physicians working with safe, natural substances.
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