isn't that just peachy?
Nov. 23rd, 2004 04:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rootofnewtChronic Pain Linked With Brain Loss
Pain link to permanent brain loss
Chronic pain may permanently shrink the brain, US researchers believe.
The Northwestern University team had previously shown patients with back pain had decreased activity in the same brain region called the thalamus.
This area is known to be important in decision-making and social behaviour.
The team's current study in the Journal of Neuroscience suggests some of the changes may be irreversible and render pain treatment ineffective. More research is needed, they say.
Shrinkage
If true, it makes it all the more important to treat pain early to prevent any permanent change, say Dr Vania Apkarian and colleagues.
They scanned the brains of 26 patients with chronic back pain and 26 healthy people.
The patients with chronic pain caused by damage to the nervous system showed shrinks in the brain by as much as 11% - equivalent to the amount of gray matter that is lost in 10-20 years of normal aging.
The decrease in volume, in the prefrontal cortex and the thalamus of the brain, was related to the duration of pain.
Every year of pain appeared to decrease gray matter by 1.3 cubic centimetres.
What the researchers now need to find out is whether this loss is permanent or whether it can be reversed with treatment.
Dr Apkarian said: "It is possible that some of the observed decreased gray matter shown in this study reflects tissue shrinkage without substantial neuronal loss, suggesting that proper treatment would reverse this portion of the decreased brain matter."
Permanent loss?
But Dr Apkarian said other research in rats had shown that spinal cord neurons die, which suggests the brain changes could be irreversible.
Dr Nigel Lawes, senior lecturer in biomedical science at St Georges Medical School, London, said: "This is a very interesting study.
"Other imaging studies have shown in chronic pain conditions these areas of the brain are less active, so it does correspond with what other people have found."
He said the brain areas involved, which control decision making such as how to consciously move the body, might be important.
He said people with chronic back pain tended to move in automatic ways that perpetuate the pain.
Therapies to teach people how to pay attention to and control their movement to limit this pain might help, he said.
"Studies could look at whether any of these therapies improve the way they cope with their pain, do you reverse the underactivity in that part of the brain and, after you have reversed it for long enough, will that then change the brain volume?
"It might well be that it is reversible, but that depends on whether they get the right treatment or not."
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/health/4031825.stm
Published: 2004/11/23 08:01:01 GMT
© BBC MMIV
Pain link to permanent brain loss
Chronic pain may permanently shrink the brain, US researchers believe.
The Northwestern University team had previously shown patients with back pain had decreased activity in the same brain region called the thalamus.
This area is known to be important in decision-making and social behaviour.
The team's current study in the Journal of Neuroscience suggests some of the changes may be irreversible and render pain treatment ineffective. More research is needed, they say.
Shrinkage
If true, it makes it all the more important to treat pain early to prevent any permanent change, say Dr Vania Apkarian and colleagues.
They scanned the brains of 26 patients with chronic back pain and 26 healthy people.
The patients with chronic pain caused by damage to the nervous system showed shrinks in the brain by as much as 11% - equivalent to the amount of gray matter that is lost in 10-20 years of normal aging.
| It does correspond with what other people have found. Dr Nigel Lawes, senior lecturer in biomedical science at St Georges Medical School |
The decrease in volume, in the prefrontal cortex and the thalamus of the brain, was related to the duration of pain.
Every year of pain appeared to decrease gray matter by 1.3 cubic centimetres.
What the researchers now need to find out is whether this loss is permanent or whether it can be reversed with treatment.
Dr Apkarian said: "It is possible that some of the observed decreased gray matter shown in this study reflects tissue shrinkage without substantial neuronal loss, suggesting that proper treatment would reverse this portion of the decreased brain matter."
Permanent loss?
But Dr Apkarian said other research in rats had shown that spinal cord neurons die, which suggests the brain changes could be irreversible.
Dr Nigel Lawes, senior lecturer in biomedical science at St Georges Medical School, London, said: "This is a very interesting study.
"Other imaging studies have shown in chronic pain conditions these areas of the brain are less active, so it does correspond with what other people have found."
He said the brain areas involved, which control decision making such as how to consciously move the body, might be important.
He said people with chronic back pain tended to move in automatic ways that perpetuate the pain.
Therapies to teach people how to pay attention to and control their movement to limit this pain might help, he said.
"Studies could look at whether any of these therapies improve the way they cope with their pain, do you reverse the underactivity in that part of the brain and, after you have reversed it for long enough, will that then change the brain volume?
"It might well be that it is reversible, but that depends on whether they get the right treatment or not."
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/health/4031825.stm
Published: 2004/11/23 08:01:01 GMT
© BBC MMIV
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no subject
Date: 2004-11-23 09:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-23 10:04 pm (UTC)and if there is any truth to this, it makes sense.
wait, it's the bbc news, it's not corrupt.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-23 10:18 pm (UTC)Erm any idea what Orwells Room 101 was inspired by?
no subject
Date: 2004-11-23 10:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-23 10:29 pm (UTC)Orwell got the concept from when he worked for the BBC During the war years, in room 101 which basicaly edited the war reports to more erm public friendly? no, more pro government and fewer losses were reported than actualy happenned, funny enough, according to his life story, it was this job that gave him the whole idea of newspeak, which is quite simply not too far from modern day spin doctoring.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-23 10:34 pm (UTC)so at least I got the idea.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-24 04:00 pm (UTC)The Ministry of Truth is where the media was handled and where Winston Smith worked prior to being arrested and taken to the Ministry of Love.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-24 04:51 pm (UTC)Could I get away with it as an exercise in the art of lets see how many just believe what they are told, without researching it? lol
Sorry for those who were misled, Its been 18 years since I read the book.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-24 04:53 pm (UTC)I'm re-reading it right now. It's my bedtime book.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-24 05:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-24 05:44 pm (UTC)Damn, I hate brain fog, letting me go and forget something like that.
I wonder where I put them. FIrst place to check--the freezer. Second place--garden shed.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-24 05:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-23 10:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-24 05:08 am (UTC)*ponder*
no subject
Date: 2004-11-24 06:35 am (UTC):/
no subject
Date: 2004-11-24 07:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-25 02:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-25 09:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-28 05:25 pm (UTC)