[fmichael]

Sorry I've been MIA for so long but have been working on a major project. Jim Broatch of the RSDSA just sent this press release out this morning:

Chronic pain can alter the brain
Study: Scans of sufferers found activity in areas that should be at rest February 5, 2008

CHICAGO - Brain scans of people in chronic pain show a state of constant activity in areas that should be at rest, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday, a finding that could help explain why pain patients have higher rates of depression, anxiety and other disorders.

They said chronic pain seems to alter the way people process information that is unrelated to pain.

"It seems that enduring pain for a long time affects brain function in response to even minimally demanding attention tasks completely unrelated to pain," the researchers wrote in the Journal of Neuroscience.

Dante Chialvo, a researcher at Northwestern University in Chicago who worked on the study, said: "People with chronic pain - meaning pain that lasts more than six months after their injury - have many other issues that affect their quality of life as much as pain. It is not known where they come from."

Recent studies have shown that in healthy people, certain regions of the brain take over during a resting state, something known as a default mode network. "It takes care of your brain when your brain is at rest," Chialvo said in a telephone interview.

When a person performs a task, this network quiets down, he said, but not in people with chronic pain.

Instead, a front region of the cortex mostly associated with emotion is constantly active, disrupting the normal equilibrium.

To study this activity, Chialvo did a type of brain scan known as functional magnetic resonance imaging on 15 people with chronic back pain and 15 healthy people.

They gave their volunteers a simple attention task - tracking a moving bar on a computer screen - to observe the brain shifting out of default mode to handle the task.

Both groups performed the task well but when they measured areas of the brain activated, differences emerged.

"Where we were surprised is the difference in how much brain they used to do the task compared with the healthy group. It was 50 times larger," Chialvo said.

They said disruptions in this default network could explain why pain patients have problems with attention, sleep disturbances and even depression.

"These findings suggest that the brain of a chronic pain patient is not simply a healthy brain processing pain information but rather it is altered by the persistent pain in a manner reminiscent of other neurological conditions associated with cognitive impairments," they wrote.

I will be happy to send anyone a copy of the article, also dated today, which is a little too big to post here. Just send me a PM with your email address. It's interesting stuff, and another in a series from Apkarian's lab at Northwestern. (Nice brain images as well.)

Mike

[Imahotep]

I think I couldda told them that.

I don't believe my somatic problems are the result of pain however. I believe they are another symptom of whatever the disease is. I've had a sort of pessimism that comes with the pain since day one but the problems didn't come till much later. It's hard to believe the pain itself is severe enough to cause such problems. Lack of control is a major problem and it is pain activated.

[SarahB]

i don't agree with the last comment at all - it will always be impossible to separate pain from emotion but that doesn't mean that the changes in the nervous system are not an integrated part causing in a vicious circle how one feels. different types of pain cause different problems over a long period. i do thin the amount of effort to do things in pain in huge and as if i am having to compensate to go beyond the pain and achieve everyday tasks.

thanks for putting this on - i responded to someone else who also did!
very interesting,
sarahB

[tayla4me]

Originally Posted by Imahotep

I think I couldda told them that.

I don't believe my somatic problems are the result of pain however. I believe they are another symptom of whatever the disease is. I've had a sort of pessimism that comes with the pain since day one but the problems didn't come till much later. It's hard to believe the pain itself is severe enough to cause such problems. Lack of control is a major problem and it is pain activated.

Hi there,
Just wondering if you are saying that your lack if control is to blame for your somatic problems?
If so, please do not be so hard on yourself as somatic problems are as an integral part of RSD/CRPS as the pain and other symptoms are.
I for one blame it all on RSD/CRPS.
After 45 years as a self controlled, independent, high functioning, active, non depressed person then I believe there is only one culprit for me now being the opposite, that of course is RSD/CRPS.
Take care
Love Tayla

[Chemar]

I also found this in the Health News Headlines Forum

http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20080209...msbrainswiring

My husband lives with chronic pain from spinal and other injuries and I have seen how it has deeply affected so many other parts of him.

I so feel for all of you here whose pain is beyond my ability to imagine.

hoping there will be increasing times of no pain for you and praying for more effective treatments and cures