Study: Men & Women Feel Pain Differently

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A new research shows that men and women experience and process pain differently.

A team of researchers from McGill University, Duke University, and Canada's Hospital for Sick Children have showed that different cells are responsible for pain sensation in men and women.

The study found microglia responsible for pain signal in men, and T cells for the same signal in women. The study was published this month in the journal Nature.

"Research has demonstrated that men and women have different sensitivity to pain and that more women suffer from chronic pain than men, but the assumption has always been that the wiring of how pain is processed is the same in both sexes," said Dr. Jeffrey Mogil, a co-author from McGill University, via Medical News Today.

The researchers made use of male and female mice as subjects. Dr. Mogil added that for the past 15 years, scientists believed that microglia is solely responsible for pain. This, reportedly, was only determined by using male mice "almost exclusively."

Researchers found that interfering with microglia blocked pain in male mice, but not in females. They also discovered that T-cells, a type of immunity cell, may be responsible for pain transmission in female mice, although the researchers are unsure about how this happens.

"The realization that the biological basis for pain between men and women could be so fundamentally different raises important research and ethical questions if we want to reduce suffering," Dr. Mogil said.

The discovery could have great potential, as it helps scientists better understand the difference in pain transmission between the sexes. The Huffington Post reports that more women suffer from chronic pain than men, and that the development of targeted pain medication can be more effective because of the study.

"Understanding the pathways of pain and sex differences is absolutely essential as we design the next generation of more sophisticated, targeted pain medications," said co-author Dr. Michael Salter, head scientist and professor at the University of Toronto.

According to Medical News Today, mice have similar pain function and nervous systems to humans, justifying their use for the study. 

The National Institutes of Health called for an end to routine gender bias in basic research in a report by the New York Times. The report also said that many women suffer from the consequences of new drugs including side effects and dosage because it is only largely tested on men. Most worryingly, the side effects are only discovered after products such as statins, sleeping pills and more are out in the market.