All of us experience pain some time or the other in our lives may be due to injury, fatigue or cuts in the body. The nerve cells in the body which respond to extremes of temperature, pressure and injury are called nociceptors. Scientists wonder why the males and females respond differently to the same painful stimulus. Recently Claire Yuan posted data that the male and females respond differently to pain, e.g., rheumatoid arthritis and migraine pains are reported more in females whereas gout pain is more prevalent in males.
Frank Porreca of the University of Arizona Health Sciences in Tucson and colleagues conducted studies on tissues taken from mice, monkeys and humans by stimulating them with different chemicals to elicit responses in them.
One of the chemicals used was a hormone prolactin which elicits pain in the cells and found that the females of all species respond more actively to this chemical than the males. On the other hand when these tissues were sensitized with another chemical a neurotransmitter orexin B, the results were opposite to first experiment, i.e. males responded more actively to this stimulus. This information leads the researchers to believe that the males and females have different pain pathways. This fact opens the way to tailor make the medicines for relieving pain differently for the sexes. In case of males, the medicines can be made by blocking the sensitivity to orexin B whereas in case of females it can be done by blocking the sensitivity to prolactin.
Professor S. P. Singh, Ph.D.
Editor-in-Chief, Human Biology Review
Former Dean, Faculty of Life Sciences,
Punjabi University, Patiala, India