How a heart attack causes arm pain

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From  The Brain Book by Rita Carter.

Heart6It seems unconnected to a cardiac attack and yet arm pain is a common sign that the heart is in trouble. This is because it’s a form of referred pain. 

This occurs when nerve fibers from areas that receive a lot of sensory input, such as the skin, and nerves from low sensory input, such as the internal organs, enter the spinal cord at the same location.

The brain expects to be receiving the data from high sensory areas, so misinterprets the location of the pain.

For instance, in a cardiac attack, pain signals from the heart converge with those from the arm as they enter the spinal cord. The brain interprets them as coming from the arm rather than the heart.


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Click this link for more info: The Brain Book
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7 thoughts on “How a heart attack causes arm pain”

  1. Jonco – are you reading this book? It looks like it would be interesting to read.

    It reminds me of what Emo Phillips once said “I used to think that the brain was the most amazing, incredible organ in the body and then I realized–look what’s telling me that!”

  2. Tim,
    No, I just ran across the link and thought there were several items there that could make interesting posts, so I pre-posted some so one will appear each day for about a week.

  4. I had a blue arm like that guy up there ^ once, but I don’t think it was from my heart…I think it was from retrieving a big aspirin bottle that fell into the toilet and plugged up the flush.

  6. For instance, in a cardiac attack, pain signals from the heart converge with those from the arm as they enter the spinal cord. The brain interprets them as coming from the arm rather than the heart.

  7. It seems unconnected to a cardiac attack and yet arm pain is a common sign that the heart is in trouble. This is because it’s a form of referred pain.

    This occurs when nerve fibers from areas that receive a lot of sensory input, such as the skin, and nerves from low sensory input, such as the internal organs, enter the spinal cord at the same location.

    The brain expects to be receiving the data from high sensory areas, so misinterprets the location of the pain.

    For instance, in a cardiac attack, pain signals from the heart converge with those from the arm as they enter the spinal cord. The brain interprets them as coming from the arm rather than the heart.

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