How to Control Your Sense of Pain & Pleasure
from Huberman Lab
by Scicomm Media
Published: Mon Aug 09 2021
Show Notes
This episode I discuss our sense of pain and pleasure: where and how they each arise in our mind and body and various ways to control their intensity. I discuss the science of behavioral tools like acupuncture and hypnosis and directed pressure, including the neural circuits they each activate to modulate our experience of pain or pleasure. I also discuss whole body pain, pain "syndromes" and novel pain relief compounds such as Acetyl-L-Carnitine, SAMe and Agmatine. I discuss neuroplasticity of the pain system and the key role that visual perception plays in pain modulation. Finally, I address the link between dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin, with arousal, pleasure and pain. As always, both basic science and various protocols are described.
Note: The description of the dorsal root ganglia (DRGs) was intentionally simplified and does not include mention of dorsal horn spinal relay neurons, etc. For an excellent full text review of this anatomy and circuits for touch sensing, please see: https://bit.ly/3jH9CPf
Read the full show notes for this episode at hubermanlab.com.
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Timestamps
Skin, Pain, Pleasure
Protocol 1: Maximizing Motivation (with Dopamine & Pleasure)
Sponsors: AG1, LMNT & Waking Up
Pleasure & Pain, & Skin Sensors
Sensing Touch with Your Brain: Magnification of Feet, Hands, Lips, Face, Genitals
Two-Point Discrimination, Dermatomes
Thoughts & Genes That Make Physical Pain Worse
Expectations, Anxiety, & Pain Threshold
Protocol 2: Cold Sensing Is Relative; Getting Into Cold Water
Protocol 3: Heat Is Absolute
Injury & Pain
Protocol 4: Plasticity of Pain: Key Role of Vision
Sensing Disparate Body Parts As Merged
Pain “Syndromes”, Psychogenic Fever, “Psychosomatics”
Fibromyalgia, Naltrexone, Protocol 5: Acetyl-L-Carnitine
Protocol 6: Agmatine, S-adenosyl-L-methionine (SAMe), L-5-Methyltetrahydrofolate
Acupuncture: Mechanism, Non-Responders, Itch & Inflammation
Laser Photobiomodulation, Protocol 7: Hypnosis (reveri.com)
Protocol 8: Pressure-Based Pain Relief, “Gate Theory of Pain (Relief)”
Redheads & Pain Thresholds, Endogenous Opioids
Protocol 8: Love & Pain, Dopamine
Pleasure & Reproduction, Dopamine & Serotonin, Oxytocin
Protocol 9: PEA, L-Phenylalanine (Precursor to Tyrosine)
Contextual Control of Pleasure by Autonomic Arousal, Dopamine Baselines
Pleasure-Pain Balance
Protocol 10: Controlling Pleasure, Dopamine & Motivation Over Time
Protocol 11: Immediate, Non-Goal-Directed Pleasure, PAG
Direction of Touch: Pleasure Versus Pain, Arousal & Touch “Sensitivity”
Synthesis & How to Conceptualize Pain and Pleasure, Support