(July 1, 2012) "Corticostriatal functional connectivity predicts transition to chronic back pain"
Many
chronic pain sufferers resent being told by friends and family that “the pain
is all in your head.”
But a new
study out of Northwestern University found there is some truth behind that
cliché.
Researchers
found that people suffering from the same injury either recovered or developed
chronic pain, depending how two sections of their brains communicated with each
other.
The
Northwestern study, the first longitudinal brain imaging study to track
patients with a new back injury, included 40 participants with no prior history
of back pain who had an episode of back pain lasting four to 16 weeks. Brain scans were conducted on each patient
during the one year study.
The study,
published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, found that the more two sections
of the brain relating to emotional and motivational behavior “talk” to each
other, the more likely the patient would develop chronic pain. Researchers were
able to predict with 85 percent accuracy which participants would develop
chronic pain, depending upon the level of interaction between the brain’s
frontal cortex and the nucleus accumbens.