Their pain sensitivity can be reduced by watching a painfull movie. Together with the television program “de kennis van nu”, Monique Steegers and Esmeralda Blaney Davidson have performed an online study on pain sensitivity in the dutch population.
But pain sensitivity can be influenced. For instance, they also found that people who experience pain, but perform sports on a regular basis have a lower pain sensitivity than those that do not perform sports. In addition, watching a short movie in which people clearly had pain, like for instance breaking a leg, resulted in a lower pain sensitivity, but only in women. The mechanism behind this is not clear, but differences in empathy between men and women could play a role. The researchers now want to focus on unraveling the molecular mechanisms behind their findings.
More information via de Kennis van nu (in Dutch): link
Esmeralda Blaney Davidson Monique Steegers
Related news items

The future of laboratory animal research More attention to living conditions of laboratory animals
16 May 2022On May 9, a meeting took place at the Radboudumc as a result of the launch of the Dutch Transparency Agreement on Animal Testing. The Radboudumc is one of the twenty signatories and has thus committed itself to openly and transparently communicate its vision and policy with regard to animal testing.
read more
Large NWA ORC grant awarded for national skin research: Next Generation ImmunoDermatology
23 March 2022Research for better treatment methods for chronic skin diseases.
read more
Learning Social Dutch organized by RIMLS PhD council
1 February 2022Social Dutch is an initiative of the RIMLS PhD Council, aiming to bring together both Dutch and non-Dutch speaking colleagues. Dates to be announced.
read more
Radboud Postdoc Initiative (RPI) Pizza & Beer
6 January 2022On 2 February 2022 from 17:00 - 18:00 hrs the Radboud Postdoc Initiative will host an online meeting for Postdocs (and last year PhD candidates) with the theme ‘PhD to Start Up'. The meeting will be lead by Sruthi Sreekumar.
read more