New research suggests babies feel pain in a very similar way to adults. Scientists found babies' brains "lit up" the same way adults' do when exposed to the same painful stimulants.
A team of researchers looked at 10 healthy infants between the ages of one and six days old and 10 healthy adults between 23 and 36, the University of Oxford reported. All of the participants were placed in a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanner, and in most cases fell asleep. Scans were taken as researchers poked the bottoms of the participants' feet, which was a strong enough stimulus to cause a pain reaction in the brain, but mild enough to keep them from waking. The scans of both the infants' and adults' brains were then compared.
The findings showed 18 of the 20 brain regions active in adults experiencing pain, were also active in the infants; although babies' brains had the same reaction to a weak poke that adults had in response to one that was four times stronger. The findings suggest babies experience pain in the same way as adults, but have a much lower pain threshold.
"This is particularly important when it comes to pain: obviously babies can't tell us about their experience of pain and it is difficult to infer pain from visual observations. In fact some people have argued that babies' brains are not developed enough for them to really 'feel' pain, any reaction being just a reflex -- our study provides the first really strong evidence that this is not the case," said Rebeccah Slater of Oxford University's Department of Pediatrics, lead author of the report
Until the 1980s it was commonplace for babies to be given neuromuscular blocks but no pain relief medication during surgery. A 2014 review of neonatal pain management practice suggested that infants in intensive care undergo an average of 11 painful procedures a day, but 60 percent do not receive any kind of pain medication.
"Recent studies in adults have shown that it is possible to detect a neurological signature of pain using MRI. In the future we hope to develop similar systems to detect the 'pain signature' in babies' brains: this could enable us to test different pain relief treatments and see what would be most effective for this vulnerable population who can't speak for themselves," Slater said.
The findings were published in a recent edition of the journal eLife.
