A highly successfull study of the molecular pathways of nociception (and identification of a loss of function mutation in the alpha subunit of SCN9A, a voltage gated sodium channel) has a sad story from Northern Pakistan

The index case for the present study was a ten-year-old child, well known to the medical service after regularly performing ‘street theatre’. He placed knives through his arms and walked on burning coals, but experienced no pain. He died before being seen on his fourteenth birthday, after jumping off a house roof.

It is so difficult for us humans to accept that pain has an important function in life, yea, yea.