Theory 73/Pain/Rate lens
Pain Follows Stimulus Rate
The claim
Pain intensity is set by the rate at which nociceptors fire, with slow repeated stimulation producing more pain than a single larger one.
01Mechanism
Temporal summation in the dorsal horn integrates repeated input; the rate determines how much accumulation occurs.
02Prediction
Intensity should track repetition rate.
03Refutation
Intensity tracking stimulus energy would remove summation.