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
00:00:00 Skin, Pain, Pleasure
00:01:50 Protocol 1: Maximizing Motivation (with Dopamine & Pleasure)
00:07:29 Sponsors: AG1, LMNT & Waking Up
00:12:04 Pleasure & Pain, & Skin Sensors
00:18:13 Sensing Touch with Your Brain: Magnification of Feet, Hands, Lips, Face, Genitals
00:22:16 Two-Point Discrimination, Dermatomes
00:28:11 Thoughts & Genes That Make Physical Pain Worse
00:33:45 Expectations, Anxiety, & Pain Threshold
00:40:27 Protocol 2: Cold Sensing Is Relative; Getting Into Cold Water
00:45:22 Protocol 3: Heat Is Absolute
00:48:10 Injury & Pain
00:52:04 Protocol 4: Plasticity of Pain: Key Role of Vision
00:58:08 Sensing Disparate Body Parts As Merged
01:01:00 Pain “Syndromes”, Psychogenic Fever, “Psychosomatics”
01:04:40 Fibromyalgia, Naltrexone, Protocol 5: Acetyl-L-Carnitine
01:12:24 Protocol 6: Agmatine, S-adenosyl-L-methionine (SAMe), L-5-Methyltetrahydrofolate
01:17:27 Acupuncture: Mechanism, Non-Responders, Itch & Inflammation
01:28:20 Laser Photobiomodulation, Protocol 7: Hypnosis (reveri.com)
01:30:00 Protocol 8: Pressure-Based Pain Relief, “Gate Theory of Pain (Relief)”
01:37:53 Redheads & Pain Thresholds, Endogenous Opioids
01:44:02 Protocol 8: Love & Pain, Dopamine
01:49:23 Pleasure & Reproduction, Dopamine & Serotonin, Oxytocin
01:51:40 Protocol 9: PEA, L-Phenylalanine (Precursor to Tyrosine)
01:55:40 Contextual Control of Pleasure by Autonomic Arousal, Dopamine Baselines
01:59:40 Pleasure-Pain Balance
02:01:24 Protocol 10: Controlling Pleasure, Dopamine & Motivation Over Time
02:06:40 Protocol 11: Immediate, Non-Goal-Directed Pleasure, PAG
02:08:40 Direction of Touch: Pleasure Versus Pain, Arousal & Touch “Sensitivity”
02:13:00 Synthesis & How to Conceptualize Pain and Pleasure, Support
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