英国研究人员证实，一些人确实会对别人的疼痛产生生理反应，出现感应式疼痛。这项研究结果或有助于治疗功能性疼痛。

伯明翰大学斯图尔特·德比希尔博士和同事乔迪·奥斯本选取108名大学生作为试验对象，研究人是否会产生感应式疼痛。

研究人员首先让试验对象观看一些令人感觉疼痛的场景，譬如运动员受伤、病人接受注射等。接近三分之一的试验对象说，至少有一个场景让他们不仅产生情绪反应，还感觉生理疼痛，而疼痛位置就是场景中主人公的痛处。德比希尔将这些人归类为“反应者”。那些未感到疼痛的人则为“无反应者”。

研究人员选取反应者和无反应者各10人，让他们观看忍受疼痛场景、令人感动而非疼痛场景和普通场景，同时用功能性核磁共振成像仪（MRI）观察他们的大脑活动情况。MRI图像会随着大脑血流量的变化而变化，研究人员可以借此观察大脑哪个区域对某一刺激产生反应。研究发现，当观看疼痛场景时，反应者和无反应者大脑情感中心都活跃起来；反应者大脑中与疼痛感相关的区域比无反应者更加活跃。当观看令人感动场景时，反应者大脑中与疼痛感相关区域平静下来。

研究者德比希尔说：“我们认为，这证实至少一些人看到他人受伤或者表露疼痛时，确实产生生理反应。”

反应者说，他们通常不愿意观看恐怖电影和新闻中令人不安的场景，“以避免陷入痛苦”。研究人员认为，这不仅仅是一种移情作用。

研究人员认为，这项研究结果有助于了解乃至治疗功能性疼痛。功能性疼痛又称精神性疼痛或心因性疼痛。“功能性疼痛患者忍受着疼痛，却没有明显疾病或伤处来解释疼痛来源，”德比希尔说。他说，因此，这一研究成果“对发现疼痛生成途径而言，是一项重要成就”，或许可以让人了解功能性疼痛背后的大脑机制。德比希尔说，他下一步计划以功能性疼痛患者为试验对象，进行同样试验。

原始出处：

Pain doi:10.1016/j.pain.2009.11.007

Pain sensation evoked by observing injury in others

Jody Osborna and Stuart W.G. Derbyshire, a,

a School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston B15 2TT, UK

Observing someone else in pain produces a shared emotional experience that predominantly activates brain areas processing the emotional component of pain. Occasionally, however, sensory areas are also activated and there are anecdotal reports of people sharing both the somatic and emotional components of someone else’s pain. Here we presented a series of images or short clips depicting noxious events to a large group of normal controls. Approximately one-third of this sample reported an actual noxious somatic experience in response to one or more of the images or clips. Ten of these pain responders were subsequently recruited and matched with 10 non-responders to take part in an fMRI study. The subjects were scanned while observing static images of noxious events. In contrast with emotional images not containing noxious events the responders activated emotional and sensory brain regions associated with pain while the non-responders activated very little. These findings provide convincing evidence that some people can readily experience both the emotional and sensory components of pain during observation of other’s pain resulting in a shared physical pain experience

来源：新华网