Massage and the application of liniments to painful areas in the body relieves pain due to:
D i.e. Inhibition by large myelinated afferent fibresAnalgesia is produced by cholinergic agonist (epibatidine), nicotine (acting on a 4 &fl2 subunits of nicotine cholinergic receptors), cannabinoids - anandamide (binding CB1 receptor) and palmitoyl ethanolamide/PEA (binding CB2 recceptor), exogenous opioids, endogenous brain & spinal cord opiate system (involving enkephalin, endorphins and serotonin causing stress induced analgesia in stress situations like war and on acupuncture at a location distant from site of pain), gate control mechanism (i.e. stimultaneous stimulation of large myelinated A pfibers for non painful tactile sensation by touching, shaking, massage, application of counter irritant, mustard plaster, electric vibrator or acupuncture at the site of the pain and stimulation of skin eg applying hot bottle over an area of visceral stimulation can block / close the gate to painful stimuli), inhibition of pain producing neurotransmitter (substance P, glutamate) or receptor i.e. nociceptor (k/a nocistatin stimulation), noradrenergic antagonist & agonist and absence of (3-arrestin-2. However cholinergic antagonists have no analgesic effect.*Serotonergic and noradrenergic (agonist) neurons in the brain stem activate opioid (enkephalin) interneurons and suppress the activity of spinothalamic projection neurons (i.e. cause analgesia)
Stimulation of endogenous analgesic system
Release of endorphins by the first order neurons in the brain stem
Release of glutamate and substance P in the spinal cord
Inhibition by large myelinated afferent fibres