Case Study

2. The funny bone is actually the ulnar nerve, a nerve that runs from the neck all the way to the

hand, where it innervates several muscles in the hand and forearm and ends in two branches

that innervate the pinkie and half of the ring finger. When this it hit numbness and tingling starts

at the elbow and shoots down your arm into your hand and fingers.

3. The ulnar nerve gives sensation (feeling) to the little finger and to half of the ring finger on

both the palm and back side of the hand.

4. When the ulnar nerve is hit with force in the elbow region, most of the nerves that are passing

through that point are stimulated. This means that the nerve sends a signal to the brain, which is

interpreted as pain/dysaesthesia in the region the ulnar nerve innervates. This is why you feel

part of your hand tingling. Not because the nerve sends signals to the hand, but because it

sends signals to the brain. Nothing happens to the hand, it is just your brain misinterpreting

phantom signals from the ulnar nerve. a nerve can only transmit whatever signal it is going to

transmit-- meaning that if you were to electrically stimulate a pain receptor (nocireceptor) it

would result in pain sensation, or heat receptor would result in sensation of heat.

More importantly, nerves have a specific area of innervation. If a nerve is stimulated, the signal

is passed through the peripheral nervous system, into the CNS and then parsed and sent to the

relevant areas. The fact that that nerve is stimulated leads your body to believe that the area the

nerve innervates is experiencing that stimulus. It doesn't matter where along the nerve it is

stimulated, it still results in sensations at the area of innervation, not stimulation.

5. Pain essentially is registered in your brain. Peripheral nerves extend from spinal cord to skin

and react to physical stimulus and some nerve fibers end in nociceptors which relay pain

messages in the form of electrical impulses along a peripheral nerve...