pain, genteel and otherwise

From: Jokers' Masquerade

"In a study published earlier this year in the Journal of Neuroscience, researchers at Wake Forest University explored the impact of mindfulness meditation on pain after only a few days of meditation training.
     A group of 15 healthy volunteers took part in four 20-minute sessions of mindfulness meditation instruction where they were trained to maintain awareness on their own breathing while acknowledging and letting go of distraction.
     The study evaluated the effect of mindfulness meditation in two dimensions: 1) how the volunteers reported pain intensity and unpleasantness, and 2) how brain activation patterns changed as measured by functional MRI. To assess the volunteer’s pain response, a small thermal simulator heated to around 120°F was applied to the back of the leg.
     Comparing responses to the heat before and after meditation training, volunteers reported a 40% reduction in pain intensity and a 57% reduction in unpleasantness associated with the heat stimulus. Brain imaging indicated increased activation in areas associated with awareness of the pain sensation and a reduced activation in areas associated with the emotional response to pain perception.
     Interestingly, a decoupling of two brain areas, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and cingulate cortex, was observed. The prefrontal cortex is thought to control attention and other executive functions, whereas the cingulate cortex is associated with the emotional salience of a stimulus. The authors suggest that the beneficial effect of meditation may be due to a dissociation of the awareness of pain with the emotional evaluation of the pain attached to it. Accordingly, the meditators are aware of the pain sensation, but are not judging or focusing on the disturbing quality normally associated with the pain."
— Stephen Doughery, BrainBlogger
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"Naqibullah, age 13, 'a local imam's son, said he stumbled into the raid while cycling from a friend's house,' and was interrogated daily about his knowledge of the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
     'I told them, "I don't know these people and I am too young to give anything to anyone without my father's authority."' After two weeks, Naqibullah said, he was asked whether he had any objection to being taken to 'another place.'
     'I said, "What can I do? You will take me wherever you want to."' That night, bound, blindfolded and fitted into orange overalls, he was loaded on to a cargo plane and flown non-stop to Cuba. Naqibullah's first 10 days in Guantanamo were the worst of his life, he said."
     According to a March 2004 story by The New York Times, another child prisoner, Asadullah, age 12 or 13, believed to be the youngest of the prisoners, said he was interrogated daily for several months while held in Afghanistan. The beatings he endured in the first five days of his captivity still bothered him when he arrived in Guantanamo. [...]
     Other reports of abuse or torture by underage children held at Guantanamo also exist. Most recently, the youngest prisoner at Guantanamo Bay at the time of his release in June 2009, Chadian citizen Mohammed el Gharani, who was 14 years old when grabbed by the Americans, told a Miami Herald reporter that beatings and tear gassing occurred as late as 2009. Prior to that time, according to the British charity organization Reprieve, he had been subjected to sleep deprivation, freezing cold, strobe lights, blasting music, being burned by a cigarette and more beatings. As a result, the boy who entered Guantanamo at age 14 or 15 attempted suicide more than once, 'including slashing his wrists, trying to hang himself and running head-first into the wall as hard as he could.'"
— Jeffrey Kaye, Truthout
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"Pain is a sensation that may vary depending on the condition. Pain may be felt as sharp or dull, piercing or stabbing, electrical or shooting, throbbing or stinging, etc. It may be constant or it may come and go.     You may sense pain only during a specific activity or only at a certain time of day.
     In any event, pain is a message transmitted by your nerves to tell you something is wrong."
— Dr. B. Marks, Enzine Articles
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