Genuine Pain Research Articles

Judgments of genuine, suppressed, and faked facial expressions of pain.

The process of discriminating among genuine, suppressed, and faked expressions of pain was examined. Untrained judges estimated the severity of pain being experienced when viewing videotaped facial expressions of chronic pain patients undergoing a painful diagnostic test or dissimulating reactions. Verbal feedback as to whether pain was experienced also was provided, so as to be either consistent or inconsistent with the facial expression. Judges were able to distinguish genuine pain faces from baseline expressions but, relative to genuine pain faces, attributed more pain to faked faces and less pain to suppressed ones. Advance warning of deception did not improve discrimination but led to a more conservative or nonempathic judging style. Verbal feedback increased or decreased judgments, as appropriate, but facial information consistently was assigned greater weight. An augmenting model of the judgment process that attaches considerable importance to the context in which information is provided was supported.

Temporomandibular Joint Dysfunction A Restorative Dentist's View

<h2>Summary</h2> Temporomandibular joint dysfunction is a multi-factorial disease, giving genuine pain and suffering to the patient involved. One treatment method involves the restorative dentist first diagnosing the problem and then treating it in a conservative and reversible manner. Once treatment has succeeded, permanent improvement to the patient's bite may be required by means of cast dental restorations to give the desired jaw relationship and guidance to the mandible in excursive movements. This paper describes the rationale for such treatment and shows one such case successfully treated in practice.

The Bodily Frame: Learning Romance in Persuasion

[NNE ELLIOT , the reserved, sensible, blushing heroine of Jane Austen's Persuasion, reaches the certainty of romantic love through a most gradual process in which she displays genuine pleasure, mingled pain and joy, in the various sensations of her deeply felt physical life. ' She is a heroine who achieves a happy balance of reason and passion, displaying the decorous restraint shown by most of Austen's characters who fall in love. However, in spite of her reserve, and within the usual conventions and constraints of superficially genteel society, Anne is unafraid of physical sensation and excitement. In-

Escape from and avoidance of nociception elicited by intracranial stimulation of the cat subthalamus

An investigation was undertaken to find out whether cats would learn by a non-aversive auditory cue to avoid a pain-producing intracranial stimulation (ICS) of the subthalamic region. The purpose was to determine whether such ICS produces genuine pain or simply generalized evasive actions. Bipolar stimulating electrodes were implanted bilaterally [into the brain, aimed at] in the H2 (lenticular fasciculus)-H (prerubral) fields of Forel or adjacent part of the zona incerta. The animals were trained initially to escape noxious ICS and, subsequently, to avoid that same noxious ICS when presented with an auditory cue which preceded the ICS by 10 s. After training, lesions were produced through the same electrodes; controls were without lesions. After recovery, both groups were taken through the same escape and avoidance sequence. In eight animals the prelesion avoidance patterns were not significantly altered and remained intact throughout the postlesion testing period. The effective electrode placements extended through the subthalamus to the ventral part of the rostral mesencephalic tegmentum. Fiber projections, with or without terminals, were found in the zona incerta, H1 field, lateral, posterior and dorsal hypothalamus, intralaminar, ventral, and midline thalamic nuclei, and rostral mesencephalic central gray. Certain effective stimulating or ablative neurosurgical procedures for relief of pain in humans are largely consistent with these findings.

Manhandling the Movies

Seeing the rushes was still more of a shock than seeing the first preparations for the shooting. Here was embarrassment of a different kind: the feeling of having engendered something so personal that its public exposure was at once a matter of pride and of genuine pain. For I cannot deny that, contrary to my belief in writing as a primary art or at least primary action, a more overwhelming reality had been created, which, however; had remained my reality too. I've never been a best-selling writer and have thus rarely come upon someone in a train or plane who just happened to be reading a book of mine-but that has occurred. It was amusing but nothing more. Now, sitting in the projection hall, hearing the actors speak my words while other people beside me watched and listened, was something else: a way of communicating of great intensity. I sat in the dark hall, and blushed. MANHANDLING MOVIES