For the first time, researchers have examined the brains of infants to discover how they experience pain. They found that babies experience pain in much the same way as fully-grown adults.

Share on Pinterest Previously, researchers believed that it would not be possible to study babies in MRI scanners on account of their inability to remain still.

With the help of a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanner, researchers from Oxford University in the UK demonstrated that many of the same regions of the brain that activate in adults in response to pain are also active in the brains of babies.

Their findings also indicate that infants are more sensitive to pain than adults, suggesting that pain relief procedures for babies are in need of a review.

“Thousands of babies across the UK undergo painful procedures every day but there are often no local pain management guidelines to help clinicians. Our study suggests that not only do babies experience pain but they may be more sensitive to it than adults,” explains lead author Dr. Rebeccah Slater.

“We have to think that if we would provide pain relief for an older child undergoing a procedure then we should look at giving pain relief to an infant undergoing a similar procedure.”

The researchers examined the brains of 10 healthy infants aged 1-6 days old and 10 healthy adults aged 23-36 years. While accompanied by their parents and staff, the babies were placed inside an MRI scanner where the bottoms of their feet were poked with a special retracting rod. The sensation was described as “like being poked with a pencil.”

When inside the scanner, many of the babies would fall asleep. The poking sensation was mild enough so that the infants were not woken up by the stimulus.