Pain in the Brain?
A recent study published by Northwestern University researchers and reported by Science Daily may reveal new answers about chronic pain. An estimated 10% of the United States’ population suffers from a chronic pain; thus, these findings may help improve the daily lives of millions of individuals.
Instead of focusing on the area where the pain is felt-as most doctors and researchers have in the past-the new findings reveal the pain we feel may be rooted in the brain. That is, our repeated memories of a painful event may actually cause us to feel “physical pain.” The research team concludes that chronic pain’s source may be memories that are trapped in the prefrontal cortex of the brain, a complex area responsible for learning and some emotions. Essentially, “our brain seems to remember the injury as if it were fresh and can’t forget it."
The researchers have developed a drug that targets pain in the brain, a deviation from traditional drugs that target the body’s sensory input of pain (for instance, the back, or a foot, etc.). According to researcher Vania Apkarian, “In some ways, you can think of chronic pain as the inability to turn off the memory of the pain. What’s exciting is that we now may be relieving what has clinically been the most difficult to treat-the suffering or the emotional component of pain.”
Experimentation on rats has shown the drug to be effective. If the drug is approved for human use, the researchers expect individuals will still report the sensation of feeling pain, but that the pain’s emotional and cognitive consequences will be reduced.
These findings are not limited to chronic pain management. Research has (again) shown the power of the brain to regulate our daily experience. In this case, researchers have examined pain, something which seems very bodily, and illustrated our mind’s involvement in the process.
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