Brain-Scanning "Painometer" Is an Attempt to Measure Pain Objectively
Pain Detection Sean Mackey, M.D., Ph.D. Pain must be the bane of many a doctor's existence. It's a major symptom and indicator of many illnesses, but doctors have to rely on humans to describe and rate it, and humans are a distinctly unreliable source of information. What's a "7" on the pain scale for someone might be a "4" for another. What's a "pulsing" pain for someone might be a "pounding" for someone else. At Stanford, some doctors are figuring out the first steps to objectively measure pain, finally putting that all to rest. A new, very early version of a "painometer" is being tested at Stanford. The tests are actually sort of medieval-sounding, but to test pain, you've got to inflict pain. Subjects were touched with a heat probe (on the arm, people) and the ensuing brain signals were measured. Those measurements were used to create an algorithm that, the...