In his new book, Johns Hopkins neuroscience professor David Linden reveals that the brain can modulate a person’s perception of pain depending on the circumstances.

There seems to be growing opinion in the scientific community that feelings of pain can be regulated by the mind.

According to one neuroscientist, the brain senses pain based on a constant monitoring of sensory nerve information, but it can also modulate the degree to which a person perceives it depending on the circumstances.

A prime example of this “mind over matter” scenario is soldiers’ abilities to ignore the consequences of their own bodily injuries and continue to help their units.

David Linden, a Johns Hopkins University neuroscience professor and author of a new book, Touch: The Science of Hand, Heart, and Mind, says the brain processes pain in two parts.

The first is largely a factual assessment based on sensory information, with the body’s determination of where the injury is, what type it is--for exampl