Chronic Pain Alters the way the brain Processes Information

Dante Chialvo, Northwestern University of Chicago, conducted a study that compared the brain activity of fifteen chronic pain sufferers to the brain activity of fifteen healthy individuals through functional magnetic resonance imaging. The study volunteers were given a simple task to perform, such as following a moving bar on a computer screen in an effort to observe the brain changing back and forth between resting and active mode.

Both test groups perform well, however functional magnetic resonance imaging showed that chronic pain sufferers had to use much more of their brain to process the simple task. Some chronic pain sufferers had to use as much as fifty percent of the brain to complete the task compared to healthy individuals.

Brain scans show that individuals with chronic pain have constant brain activity in areas that should be resting. These findings indicate that this over activity of certain areas of the brain in chronic pain suffers may explain why chronic pain sufferers often have attention problems, depression, sleep disturbances, and anxiety.

The study data also points out that this is not just a simple matter of a healthy brain processing constant pain, rather it is a brain altered by persistent pain processing information in a way that mimics other neurological disorders linked with cognitive problems.







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