Physiological significance of pain

Pain is defined as a physiological process associated with negative emotional experience which warns our body about impending damage. Apart from neuropathic pain, which by definition has no purpose, pain in effect provides a defensive function. However, this role is already being fulfilled by a different mechanism - the defensive reflex, which is evolutionarily older. Therefore we can ask, whether pain is only an emotional experience attached to this reflex, or if it has its own functions. To determine the physiological purpose of pain a rare syndrome of congenital analgesia, characterized by complete absence of pain, will be used. Based on a comparison of clinical cases of the syndrome with a population without pain disorders individual functions of pain will be described and connected to the individual components of pain - sensory- discriminatiory and affective-motivational. The sensory-discriminatory component provides a defensive, diagnostic and an informative function. The defensive function is analogous to the defensive reflex. The informative function transmits information about a physiological process, where pain plays a key role - labour. Diagnostic function applies in medicine and is based on verbal description of the defensive function. Functions of the SD component are involved at the time of..