Why are burns felt immediately, while there’s a slight delay in sensation for cuts?
In: Biology
Probably something to do with how many pain receptors are touched. A cut is usually a smaller area than a burn.
There’s only a thin surface area affected, and it’s the friction of the fucked up area when it’s moving that hurts? I don’t know I’m just completely guessing.
Nerve sensory? There’s tiny nerves directly under the skin, when “broken” or in this case, cut, the sensory isn’t immediately relayed to the brain, with a burn the nerves arent broken, and receptors respond more quickly.
Just my assumption based off my daughter’s birth injury where she had nerves pulled from her spine, and has had sensory delays because of it. (Brachial plexus injury/erbs palsy)
I don’t have a direct answer, but the idea that a burn is not felt immediately is a bit off, at least in terms of reflexes.
I have a distinct memory of grabbing a hot handle of a frying pan (the handle was over another burner that was on). I touched that handle to pick it up, and my reflex made me pull my hand away from that handle violently and very fast, and I didn’t realize why for few seconds. Then I felt the pain.
Not 100 percent certain but I think I know why.
Your receptors for heat are more sensitive and higher up in the skin, and your pain receptors have a higher threshold and is lower in your skin, thus you feel heat before pain.
And when you burn yourself you get the reflex that you are burning following by pain, but from experience, knowing that pain is coming, you would sense the signals for heat and preemptively feel pain.
Hope it makes sense, English is not my first language so I hope it is readable.
Simply, amount of damage.
A cut kills very few cells (with the mechanism being mechanical injury). It takes time for that amount of damage to be registered.
When you say “burns felt immediately” it depends exactly how you intend it. As someone has already pointed out, there are reflexes that happen very quickly since it doesn’t require input from the brain. Beyond that, burns damage more cells to be damaged and the damage is more significant. More damaged cells = more pain chemicals released = registers faster.
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