Do Multiple Body Modifications Alter Pain Threshold?

Abstract

In recent years, epidemiological data has shown an increasing number of young people who deliberately self-injure. There have also been parallel increases in the number of people with tattoos and those who voluntarily undergo painful procedures associated with piercing, scarification, and tattooing. People with self-injury behaviors often say that they do not feel the pain. However, there is no information regarding pain perception in those that visit tattoo parlors and piercing studios compared to those who don’t. The aim of this study was to compare nociceptive sensitivity in four groups of subjects (n=105, mean age 26 years, 48 women and 57 men) with different motivations to experience pain (i.e., with and without multiple body modifications) in two different situations; (1) in controlled, emotionally neutral conditions, and (2) at a "Hell Party" (HP), an event organized by a piercing and tattoo parlor, with a main event featuring a public demonstration of painful techniques (burn scars, hanging on hooks, etc.). Pain thresholds of the fingers of the hand were measured using a thermal stimulator and mechanical algometer. In HP participants, information about alcohol intake, self-harming behavior, and psychiatric history were used in the analysis as intervening variables. Individuals with body modifications as well as without body modifications had higher thermal pain thresholds at Hell Party, compared to thresholds measured at control neutral conditions. No such differences were found relative to mechanical pain thresholds. Increased pain threshold in all HP participants, irrespectively of body modification, cannot be simply explained by a decrease in the sensory component of pain; instead, we found that the environment significantly influenced the cognitive and affective component of pain.

Endogenous Antinociceptive System and Potential Ways to Influence It

“…In our previous study we have shown that individuals with body modifications as well as without body modifications had higher thermal pain thresholds during public demonstration of painful techniques compared to thresholds measured at control neutral conditions. These observations lead us to conclude that in emotionally charged environment, pain threshold in our participants was top-down modulated via affective and cognitive processes (Yamamotová et al 2017).…”

Prolonged Continuous Theta Burst Stimulation of the Motor Cortex Modulates Cortical Excitability But not Pain Perception

“…The tactile threshold was tested by the von Frey method (touch-test sensory evaluators, North Coast Medical). The thermal pain threshold was measured with a portable thermal stimulator of Algic stimuli (Yamamotová et al, 2017 ), a uniquely modified device that creates thermal stimulations with steadily increasing temperature (20–70°C), until a participant indicates, by pressing the left button of a computer mouse, their first perception of the relevant sensation and then the first perception of pain (Summers et al, 2004 ).…”

“Bridging the Gap” Everything that Could Have Been Avoided If We Had Applied Gender Medicine, Pharmacogenetics and Personalized Medicine in the Gender-Omics and Sex-Omics Era

“…It is evident that hormones influence perception of pain: oestrogens mitigate pain with concentration-dependent mechanisms, whereas testosterone reduces the sensitivity to chronic pain [280]. Pain responses seem to change during life depending on hormonal variability: at puberty, the perception of pain increases in women, while sex differences in chronic pain rates disappear in menopause [281]. The gonadal hormones affect the incidence of pain, as it was observed in transsexuals who received cross sex hormones to develop and maintain somatic characteristics of the opposite sex [282].…”