Redux: Do Little Bellyachers Grow up to Become Big Bellyachers? Douglas A. Drossman, MD  Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology  Volume 12, Issue 12, Pages 2033-2036 (December 2014) DOI: 10.1016/j.cgh.2014.06.009 Copyright © 2014 AGA Institute Terms and Conditions

Figure 1 Conceptual understanding of perception of bodily symptoms. The yellow bars represent the intensity of neural signals arriving from the body. The horizontal bar represents the perception threshold of the individual. Symptom awareness and pain may be experienced as the intensity of the signal increases above the perception threshold. In addition, the perception threshold may be modified by psychological factors. Anxiety and stress may lower threshold, leading to experiencing more symptoms, and focused attention, medication, or hypnosis as well as psychopharmacologic treatments can raise symptom threshold and reduce intensity of pain and the number of symptoms. Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology 2014 12, 2033-2036DOI: (10.1016/j.cgh.2014.06.009) Copyright © 2014 AGA Institute Terms and Conditions