🤔 If I Can’t Feel My Brain, Why Do I have a Headache?

A misunderstood brain…

We can’t feel our brains, just like we can’t feel our kidneys or our spleens.

So, why then do we feel headaches? Because I know that they are definitely there — especially after babysitting a two-year-old who has never left her mother’s side before and screams like she’s just seen someone murder her whole family… My ears are still ringing…

How We Feel Pain

To understand why we experience headaches, let’s first explore how we perceive pain:

1. First, a stimulus occurs, such as a prick from a needle or muscle cramps.
2. Whatever the stimulus is, it activates specialized nerve cells called nociceptors, which release electric signals to the central nervous system.
3. The central nervous system relays this electric signal to the brain.
4. Our brains then interpret the electric signal, allowing us to register and experience pain.

Why the Brain is Painless

Nociceptors are found in various parts of our body, like the skin, muscles, joints, blood vessels, bones, dental tissue, and certain organs. However, they are not present in the brain.

As a result, if your brain were ever to be pinched, there would be no nociceptors to become activated and send electric signals to your central nervous system. Therefore, your brain would never register a signal of being pinched.

Hence, the brain feels no pain. It’s painless!

What is a Headache?

So, if the brain is painless, what causes a headache?

There are actually multiple causes for different types of headaches:

Primary headaches:
These are caused by problems in the nerves, blood vessels, or chemicals that trigger pain signals in your brain. They are not related to other diseases. Examples include:

• Tension headaches — often caused by tightness of muscles attached to the skull, such as those in the head or neck.
• Migraine headaches— have no specific known cause, but it is believed that various factors play a role in the condition, such as genetics or chemical imbalances in the brain.

Secondary headaches:
These are often caused by a minor head injury, medication overuse, or as a symptom of other diseases. Examples include:

• Sinus headaches — caused by infections or inflammation of the sinuses.
• External compression headaches — caused by wearing tight headwear.
• Rebound headaches — caused by withdrawal symptoms from over-consuming pain relief meds to treat migraines.
• Inflammation of the meninges, which are the protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord, can lead to severe headaches. This occurs during infections like meningitis.
• Misinterpreted headaches, where pain is actually caused in other structures in the head or neck, such as dental issues.

Other factors such as dehydration or stress can also cause secondary headaches.

I have only mentioned some of the conditions associated with primary and secondary headaches. There are many more, but I opted for the easiest ones to explain.

To Conclude...

To put it simply, there are numerous causes for both primary and secondary headaches. However, the main message of this blog is that a headache does not originate from the brain.

Sources:

• What Causes Headaches? Triggers, Types, Treatment, and More (healthline.com)
• Headache Causes — Mayo Clinic

Please comment any thoughts or ideas you had about this post. If you liked it, why not read my other posts like ““Why Do You Cry?”, Said the Scientist” or “Wait. A Toddler is Smarter than Me?” (all science-based, except for one, which was an apology to my dad about the refrigerator).

Also, please applaud (as many times as you like, maybe 50 😉) if you enjoyed and learnt something new.

Thanks for reading :)