Hunger Is a Gatekeeper of Pain in the Brain

Re:Hunger Is a Gatekeeper of Pain in the Brain by DoctorOetker on Tuesday April 24, 2018 @07:13PM (#16917490)

so incoming pain signal is filtered through low-pass and high-pass filters, the intermediate output from the low-pass is modulated by hunger and then added to the unmodified high-pass signal. this sum is the effective or subjective pain signal.

perhaps this could be used for online learning neural networks (with neural plasticity): goals are eventual and dont need to be accutely achieved upon the moment of forming the goal (i.e. feeding can be postponed), while punishment of the neural network should be accute in order to focus on the problem while any information related to the problem is still present in the brain.

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Re:Hunger Is a Gatekeeper of Pain in the Brain by firethief on Tuesday April 24, 2018 @07:21PM (#16917526)

I think low-pass/high-pass is sort of a misleading simplification. When they say "chronic" pain they're referring to inflammatory pain, which is distinguished from "acute" pain by its source, not its time course. (I think. Not a biologist.)

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Re:Hunger Is a Gatekeeper of Pain in the Brain by contoraria on Tuesday April 24, 2018 @10:53PM (#16918342)

Different sources might use different time codes. Anyway, inflammation likely attacks all kinds of sensors and perhaps nerves directly, so the signal is noisy, and the high frequency constituents very unstable. Whereas functioning receptor networks likely fire in ensemble, so that signal should be kind of clear. The functionally intact rim of an inflammation is a comparably large area, so that would correspond to a low frequency signal. Although, it's much more complicated, surely, I wouldn't know.

Also, hunger after a long time becomes a dull feeling, too. Less energy -> longer time to light a synapse.

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