Question: definition of hurt and pain

Maria Konstantaki answered on 22 Jun 2012:

Pain is a sensation we experience after our brain has interpreted the information that has come from its peripheral receptors. For example, when you accidentally touch a hot iron your in built reflexes automatically come into action and they instruct your muscles to contract so that you move your hand away. After a couple of seconds you experience pain and it takes that long because the receptors in your fingers or skin have to transmit this information to the neighbouring nerves that then transfer it to the information processing centre in the brain. Once the brain has processed the information it creates the sensation of pain. Pain is caused by damaging a tissue either breaking a bone or tearing a muscle or burning of the skin. 🙂