Restore brain activity by reducing pain

Soothing chronic pain in the lumbar area not only helps you get rid of the pain but can also restore the normal functioning of the brain. Six months after the patient's back pain has been relieved, their brains are less likely to show abnormalities with chronic pain, according to the new study.

Restoring the normal functioning of the brain: " This is a concrete and concrete message that brings hope and relief to the sick ," said Dante Chialvo, a neuroscientist working at UCLA, USA.

In this study, Laura Stone, a neuroscientist working at McGill University, in Montreal, Canada and colleagues, scanned the brains of people who experienced chronic back pain for at least a year. Compared with healthy people, people with chronic pain have thinned in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, this is the brain area involved in modulating pain. The area also shows unusual activity when people with chronic back pain do a simple cognitive test when in a brain scanner, according to researchers.

But six months after spinal treatment or surgery or injections, brain scans showed that the brains of these suffering patients are recovering. The thinning of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex has improved thicker, and their brain activity begins to become more normal. Changes in the brain depend on the degree of pain relief: the less painful the patient is, the faster the recovery of health, the results of the study are published in the Journal of Neuroscience, issued on May 18, 2011

" We know that pain causes changes in the brain, and now we know that pain relief helps restore normal functioning of the brain ," Stone said.

It's too early to know exactly how pain relief affects brain activity, or vice versa, Stone said. But if it shows that the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex controls pain. One day doctors can alleviate pain by targeting the region, with non-invasive techniques such as cognitive behavioral therapy, meditation, or exercise.