Biological resistors?

[Skyclad1uhm1]

Seeing how much pain some people with rheumatoid arthritis have constantly I was wondering whether it wouldn't be possible to build some sort of resistors for the human body, where extreme signals from pain receptors are 'numbed' automatically, but in such a way that light pain is still transmitted as to not create a situation where they don't feel any pain (and therefore might not notice when they cut themselves).

It wouldn't be possible yet with the limited knowledge we have now, but might it be a way to treat chronic pain in the future?

 

[Matthias99]

Try a search for 'neural electrical stimulation' or 'TENS'. I think biotechnology is a bit further along than you're giving it credit for.

 

[CTho9305]

Neuron activity is transmitted as the frequency of pulses, not by the amplitude of the pulses, so a "resistor" would probably require some actual signal processing.

 

[Sahakiel]

Originally posted by: CTho9305
Neuron activity is transmitted as the frequency of pulses, not by the amplitude of the pulses, so a "resistor" would probably require some actual signal processing.

Clock divider...?

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

Originally posted by: Matthias99
Try a search for 'neural electrical stimulation' or 'TENS'. I think biotechnology is a bit further along than you're giving it credit for.

Looks more like simulation of signals to control muscles if the patient is paralyzed and has no 'normal' control of those muscles anymore. In this case the patient still has full control, but constant pain, the pain receptors are constantly firing. You want to control that, not control the muscles.

 

[MrDudeMan]

my only reservation with stuff like this is why would you want to not feel pain? i realize pain sucks, but it is telling you something is wrong. its like coaches that force pills and shots so the players can keep competing. pain is a warning sign that something is wrong, and if you ignore those warnings then it can get worse and end up causing problems.

now, that may not apply to this because i dont know anything about what arthritis is actually doing to your body. if it simply causes pain when you move and is not actually damaging anything, then cool, lets develop these suckers but i am against this if you are actually being harmed and just dont feel it

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Skyclad1uhm1

Originally posted by: Matthias99
Try a search for 'neural electrical stimulation' or 'TENS'. I think biotechnology is a bit further along than you're giving it credit for.

Looks more like simulation of signals to control muscles if the patient is paralyzed and has no 'normal' control of those muscles anymore. In this case the patient still has full control, but constant pain, the pain receptors are constantly firing. You want to control that, not control the muscles.

Nah, they're not really there yet for that (trust me, I worked for a neuroscience professor my senior year in college). Plenty of people working on it, though.

Edit: Well, I should say that it's not where they really want it to be. Controlling the muscles is one thing; it's hooking whatever controls the muscles up to the nervous system/brain that's the tricky part.

I definitely saw plenty of links on devices that use electrical stimulation to treat chronic pain. Essentially, what they do is provide a continuous low-level stimulation on the nerves that carry pain signals -- which stops you from feeling anypain in the affected area. Maintaining tactile sensation is a secondary problem; usually this sort of thing is used for internal joint injuries, as it involves an implanted device, and you're not going to implant something like this in someone's hand or foot (at least not yet)!

my only reservation with stuff like this is why would you want to not feel pain? i realize pain sucks, but it is telling you something is wrong. its like coaches that force pills and shots so the players can keep competing. pain is a warning sign that something is wrong, and if you ignore those warnings then it can get worse and end up causing problems.

now, that may not apply to this because i dont know anything about what arthritis is actually doing to your body. if it simply causes pain when you move and is not actually damaging anything, then cool, lets develop these suckers but i am against this if you are actually being harmed and just dont feel it.

One application that it's often used for is back injuries that interfere with the nerves in your lower back. If things get out of alignment down there, it can cause an awful lot of pain from pressure on the nerve cells -- even if nothing is seriously wrong. There's little that can be done about it; breaking and resetting someone's lower back is just not really feasable (and might make things even worse). Chiropractic therapy can help, but for some people it's just not enough.

Arthritis is degenerative AND painful -- moving around doesn't necessarily make the condition worse (ie, normal walking around; obviously, you don't want someone with advanced arthritis playing sports), but it hurts, supposedly quite a bit if the condition is advanced enough. Joint replacement is an option (most often knees), but that's a) difficult, b) expensive, and c) has a fairly hard rehab process. Something like this would be a good option for someone with advanced arthritis that can't (or doesn't want to) undergo joint replacement surgery.

 

[Mark R]

Originally posted by: Skyclad1uhm1

Originally posted by: Matthias99
Try a search for 'neural electrical stimulation' or 'TENS'. I think biotechnology is a bit further along than you're giving it credit for.

Looks more like simulation of signals to control muscles if the patient is paralyzed and has no 'normal' control of those muscles anymore. In this case the patient still has full control, but constant pain, the pain receptors are constantly firing. You want to control that, not control the muscles.

TENS works by stimulating sensory nerves around the spine. Have you noticed that if you injure yourself, you can get a temporary relief by rubbing the area? This is because certain non-pain sensations can cause the spinal cord to block out pain sensation, in order to prevent the brain from being distracted by the pain sensation. TENS works by stimulating a lot of sensory nerves with the hope that this will activate the blocking mechanisms within the spine.

The brain itself can exert some control over pain - it sends signals down the spine (it causes production of endorphins inside the spinal cord) which activate a different blocking mechanism. This mechanism is also activated by strong pain killers like morphine or heroin - though they have other effects as well.

There are a variety of drugs that work on the brain and seem to block pain, within the pathways within the brain - some anti-depressants and anti-epileptic drugs are used for this, and can be helpful where other types of drug haven't worked. These don't numb the pain but seem to make it less distracting.

Unfortunately, we are some what limited in the treatment of very severe pain - nerve blocks are a possibilty - essentially injecting local anaesthetic into a nerve going to the affected area - but they have a tendency to affect all sensation and not just pain - i.e. they block good pain as well as bad.

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

Originally posted by: MrDudeMan
my only reservation with stuff like this is why would you want to not feel pain? i realize pain sucks, but it is telling you something is wrong. its like coaches that force pills and shots so the players can keep competing. pain is a warning sign that something is wrong, and if you ignore those warnings then it can get worse and end up causing problems.

now, that may not apply to this because i dont know anything about what arthritis is actually doing to your body. if it simply causes pain when you move and is not actually damaging anything, then cool, lets develop these suckers but i am against this if you are actually being harmed and just dont feel it

A friend of mine has a variant of rheuma that affects muscles throughout your whole body, which means that she sometimes can have a feeling similar to that of a heartattack, but lasting for hours or days in a row, constant pain. She hardly ever has a day where the medicines can suppress the pain far enough, and never knows what will hurt that day.

There is no cure, the patient knows what's wrong, but not being able to sleep for days or weeks in a row because the pain is too heavy isn't exactly healthy either.