Neurological Mechanisms in the Experience of Pain *

Abstract

I have been asked to talk to this Symposium about some of the neurological mechanisms that are involved in the experience of pain — presumably because, if acupuncture has any clinical role at all, it is probably in the field of analgesia. Therefore, people interested in acupuncture perforce must acquaint themselves with some of the basic data relating to the mechanisms that underlie the human experience of pain; and for this reason, I propose in this talk to draw your attention to a few selected matters in this field, and ask you to consider them dispassionately in relation to what you are going to hear later at this meeting. But before I do that, I should like to make my own position clear at the outset — which is that I am not here to advocate the use of acupuncture for anything, nor am I here to denigrate it in any way at all, but merely wish to invite you to join me in looking at some facts with which any statements about acupuncture and its relation to pain relief need to be reconciled.