Pain is made in the brain. The nerves report damage, and the feeling is built from that report.

What it means

Specialized nerve endings detect heat, pressure or chemical signs of injury and send that information inward, but nothing about those signals hurts on the way. The brain weighs them against context, attention and expectation and generates the experience. That is why an injury can go unnoticed in an emergency, and why phantom limb pain is possible in a limb that is gone.

The claim comes from NCBI Bookshelf.

Nearby in the collection

The facts either side of this one.

• MedlinePluseasy, 72 letters
• MedlinePlushard, 76 letters
• NCBI Bookshelfeasy, 77 letters
• NIGMSmedium, 76 letters

About as hard as this one

Scored closest to it by the model behind our guide to solving cryptograms.

• NHGRIeasy, 77 letters
• MedlinePluseasy, 71 letters
• Brain Research Bulletineasy, 74 letters
• NCBI Bookshelfeasy, 71 letters