Forehead and fingertips most sensitive to pain, research shows (The Guardian)

Forehead and fingertips most sensitive to pain, research shows (The Guardian)

The forehead and fingertips are the most sensitive parts to pain, according to the first map created by scientists of how the ability to feel pain varies across the human body.

It is hoped that the study, in which volunteers had pain inflicted without touching them, could help the estimated 10 million people in the UK who suffer from chronic pain by allowing physicians to use lasers to monitor nerve damage across the body. This would offer a quantitative way to monitor the progression or regression of a condition.

Lead author Dr Flavia Mancini, of the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, said: “Acuity for touch has been known for more than a century, and tested daily in neurology to assess the state of sensory nerves on the body. It is striking that until now nobody had done the same for pain.”