The neurology of chronic pain

My Pain, My Brain by Melanie Thern­strom gives us a look at a study being done at Stan­ford Uni­ver­sity. Sub­jects view an area of the brain that is involved in the per­cep­tion of pain via a func­tional mag­netic res­o­nance imag­ing (fMRI) machine, and undergo train­ing sim­i­lar to biofeed­back in which they prac­tice directly con­trol­ling that part of the brain. Doing so can allow the sub­ject to con­trol the per­cep­tion of chronic pain.

Thern­strom touches on sev­eral other inter­est­ing stud­ies in the arti­cle, includ­ing Irene Tracy’s Oxford Uni­ver­sity study on the effects of dis­trac­tion on chronic pain.

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May 21, 2006   Posted in: From the news, Neurology

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