I get why feeling pain is important for us, but why does the body not get used to chronik pain? I dont need to get reminded that my knee hurts for 10 years.
Wouldnt it be smarter if the brain is like: “This nerve is sending me constant signals about pain for years, i should just cut it off”.
In: Biology
There is the general mechanism of [neural adaptation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_adaptation) whereby nerves stop responding to continual input. This is evolutionarily adaptive for most sensation under the maxim “old news is worthless” or perhaps “change is what I need to notice”.
The nocioceptive (pain) neurons are different than the norm, where they discard the typical adaptation because pain is not subject to the same rules. If something continues to feel pain, that “old news” is actually current news and ought not be eliminated. This is an affirmative difference which itself demands evolutionary explanation. Things continue to hurt because pain is useful.
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