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Asked by erqyranbavw4 to Hugh, James, Katherine, Matt, Shannon on 9 Nov 2017.
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Katherine Benson answered on 9 Nov 2017:
Nerves in your skin can detect different types of pain (like a cut or a burn) and they send this signal to your brain where it is interpreted as pain and your body reacts to it. This pain is real. In some cases your brain can be fooled though and receive input that it interprets as pain in an area where there is no pain. This pain is not real in the sense that there is no physical thing causing the pain. That does not make the pain feel any less real and it does not make normal pain any less real.
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Hugh J. Byrne answered on 11 Nov 2017:
As Katie says – pain is real!
I have read that it is common for amputees to feel pain in the arm or leg that has been amputated, and this is an example of what Katie refers to as the brain imagining pain. I think they did some experiments using mirrors, to make it seem that the arm or leg was there, and the pain went away. For sure, the brain can “imagine” pain.
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