A baby’s pain registers in the brain

Monitor picks up spikes in nerve cell activity after a jab or a stick

newborn baby wearing electrodes

A GAIN ON PAIN  During painful procedures, newborns’ brains show a spike in activity that can be detected with electrodes on the scalp, a new study suggests. Monitoring such activity could one day provide an objective measurement of pain.

Department of Paediatrics, Medical Sciences Division, University of Oxford

An electrode on top of a newborn’s scalp, near the soft spot, can measure when the baby feels pain.