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A painful experience is not one you are likely to forget—you don’t need to a trunk slammed onto your finger multiple times to realize that it’s a situation you’d like to avoid. According to a study published Thursday (January 10) in Current Biology, one painful ordeal in a particular setting is enough to make pain less tolerable in that same place in the future—but only if you’re male.
A growing body of evidence suggests a close link between pain and memory. For example, scientists have found that the molecular mechanisms underlying the two processes in the neurons of the spinal cord and brain share striking similarities. And in rodents, scientists have used drugs that manipulate memory-like processes in the spinal cord to reduce persistent pain. “The idea that chronic pain is an issue of memory is increasingly gaining traction,” says Jeffrey Mogil, a neuroscientist at McGill ...
