Question

Why does a heart attack radiate pain in the left shoulder and arm?

A) The left shoulder and arm are the first to lose their blood supply and begin to hurt.
B) Sometimes, stimulation of internal pain receptors is felt as pain from the skin.
C) The nerves that innervate the heart go through the left shoulder and arm before going to the spinal cord.
D) Damage to the heart muscle results in a flood of inflammatory products carried by the blood stream to the left shoulder and arm first.
E) The heart will close off the blood supply to the arteries that supply the left arm, leading to the pain.

Answer 1

Referred pain is the conscious perception of visceral sensation projected to a different region of the body. In the case of a heart attack, the strong sensations from the heart are felt as pain in the left shoulder and arm.

Step-by-step explanation:

Referred pain is the perception of visceral sensations projected to a different region of the body. In the case of a heart attack, the strong visceral sensations of the heart can be felt as pain in the left shoulder and arm. This phenomenon is due to the fact that the visceral sensory fibers from the mediastinal region, where the heart is located, enter the same level of the spinal cord as the somatosensory fibers from the shoulder and arm. As a result, the brain misinterprets the sensations from the heart as being from the shoulder and arm.