Brain's "Pleasure Chemical" is involved in Pain Response as well

A new study has found that dopamine, long known to be involved in our experience of pleasure, also plays an important role in our experience of pain. "It appears from our study that dopamine acts as an interface between stress, pain and emotions, or between physical and emotional events, and that it's activated with both positive and negative stimuli," said one of the scientists involved in this study. Researchers found that the release of dopamine in the brain was correlated to the emotional distress and intensity of the pain, and think that this discovery has some ramifications for our understanding of drug addiction. Although it's not talked about in this article, these finding have some important ramifications for an understanding of sexuality as well, especially because they may help explain why pleasure and pain are often intermingled. Link: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=54587&nfid=rssfeeds