And she wasn’t sure exactly where on her hand it was coming from. This was because she was no longer receiving signals from her A-delta fibres; instead, the sensation was coming from another type of nerve, known as C-fibres. These are smaller, and unmyelinated, so transmit their pain signals more slowly, and the pain they produce is duller, more of an ache or a burn, and harder to localise. These fibres, being smaller, don’t use as much energy, so can survive longer without blood flow. C-fibres have endings that respond to a range of different potentially dangerous stimuli. Some respond to
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