How the Brain Interprets Pain and How to Get Relief

This article discusses an experiment that tested the question of whether romance can cure the feeling of physical pain. The study was done at Stanford University, and the subjects were fifteen students who were in an intense relationship. The students inflicted a thermal pain on their left hand, and then were asked to focus on an image of their loved one. The results showed that the pain alleviated when the students were gazing at the photograph, but when they looked away, they felt more of a pain. This article came from U.S. News, a highly credible leading news weekly that focuses on reports from American colleges. Marshall Allen, the author of this article, won the 2011 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting. The context of this piece is spacial because it analyzes the results from an experiment over a period of time, through social interactions between students. The purpose of this article is to propose new information about engaging in emotional experiences will trigger the brain to provide relief. The audience of this piece is everyone who has ever been in love with a significant other and can relate to the pleasure that they provide in order to make these connections between the content and themselves. The major rhetorical devices listed in this piece are logos through the scientific explanations of how emotional experiences trigger a sense of relief to the brain, formal diction when discussing the functions of the brain and its different parts, as well as establishing credibility for the plethora of colleges, doctors and professors the author quoted in order to effectively accomplish his purpose.