Keep an Eye on Pain (Literally)
Did you know that you have the potential to release an opioid even stronger than morphine at any moment you please?
Thanks to the interplay between the visual spinotectal pathway and the periaqueductal gray matter (PAG), this is one of our most innate, built in antalgic mechanisms.
Receiving information from the retina and cortical visual association areas, the visual spinotectal tract synapses in the superior colliculus in the midbrain with axons that descend around the PAG.
This tract is primarily involved in coordinating reflexive movements of the head, neck, and eyes in response to visual stimuli.
Stimulation of the PAG has a two-fold effect, both causing an increase in the release of serotonin, norepinephrine, and glycine in the spinal cord, as well as an inhibitory effect on numerous nocioceptive spinothalamic pathways.
By combining this knowledge, stimulating a functional visual spinotectal pathway by simply LOOKING at a painful site should actually decrease our experience of pain thanks to the PAG.
As students learn in the P-DTR Foundations series, these pathways can sometimes become dysfunctional and looking at our aches and pains can actually have the opposite effect and INCREASE our level of discomfort.
Using P-DTR, learning how to assess and correct this pathway for dysfunction can not only improve the raw material our brains have to work with, but also allow us to take advantage of our built-in nifty neuro hacks.
Understand neurology to understand your body.
For more P-DTR resources and to sign up for courses in the USA, Canada, Asia, or Australia:
To learn more about P-DTR Global: