Now she's being studied, and a gene change has been identified.

Perhaps the knowledge she yields will help with treatments for both emotional and physical pain.

I couldn't help wondering after processing the article, whether she can experience pleasure, too - at least, the physical kind. Orgasm? Eating? (She has the figure of a twenty year old, although her face is aged. In fact, she seems to be missing teeth - related to her pain insensitivit?)

But then pain and pleasure receptors are different in nerve endings. But the emotional angle - that's most intriguing to me.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/0...icks&pgtype=Homepage

Looking forward to reading about her case. I’ve read that most people who can’t feel pain die young.

One of my friends on FB posted this with the comment ‘I’ll have what she’s having’. Funny line and all, but it’s worth noting that the evolutionary purpose of both pain and emotions is to motivate us and the ways they do so must have been highly adaptive.

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it’s worth noting that the evolutionary purpose of both pain and emotions is to motivate us and the ways they do so must have been highly adaptive.

This. I saw a program on Japanese tv about a child who never felt pain, and the parents had a very hard time ensuring that the child was ok, wasn't injured, didn't have a broken bone undiscovered, was healthy etc. So yes, pain, as "painful" as it is (sorry), serves a lot of purposes!

I haven't read the article yet though, will do that today.

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Originally posted by Amanda:
Perhaps the knowledge she yields will help with treatments for both emotional and physical pain.

I hope so.

We have a family member who suffers from MS. I can't imagine how wonderful it would be if they came up with a gene splice procedure to manage her pain.