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It's really interesting to me to think about pain perception and differences in pain sensitivity. We seem to have generally agreed that there are many factors (bio, social, cultural) involved, and I wonder to what extent each of those play a role. In relation, the physiology of pain is also fascinating - and just how little we really know about how to measure pain. If we could figure out the factors, could we really come up with some kind of equation to determine the actual vs. perceived "level" of pain? Would that even do any good? In thinking about physicians and prescribing medicine, if someone's perceived level of pain is much higher than their actual level, should that doctor prescribe less? If the main concern is patients exaggerating their pain level, would a lie detector do the trick? These are clearly not all things I agree with and think should happen, but I’m concerned with the applicability of my own curiosity. I think it would be really cool to be able to have some quantitative measure for pain, but I’m not sure how it could be of use. In addition, going off our discussion about animal models, there would be a lot of moral issues with doing these studies (I’m talking about serious, debilitating pain, not minor pain studies done presently). What may be more important, as people have hinted at, is changing cultural/social perception of pain (at least minor pain), because I strongly believe there’s a large psychosomatic component.