Health & Medicine - Posted by Allison Flynn-McGill on Wednesday, May 18, 2011 9:14 - 4 Comments 
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(2 votes, average: 1.50 out of 5) Loading ...Back pain therapy renews brain function
While more research is needed to confirm whether chronic back pain actually causes changes in the brain, it appears that, at the very least, it maintains these differences. (Credit: iStockphoto)
MCGILL (CAN) — Easing chronic lower back pain reverses abnormal brain activity and function that often accompanies it.
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The text of this article by Futurity is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License.
Adults who are victims of back pain also experience cognitive impairments and reduced gray matter in parts of the brain associated with pain’s emotional components, like depression and anxiety.
For a new study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, researchers recruited patients who had reported low back pain for more than six months and who planned on undergoing spinal injections or spinal surgery ¬ to alleviate their pain.
MRI scans were conducted on each subject before and six months after their procedures. The scans measured the cortical thickness of the brain and brain activity when the subjects where asked to perform a simple cognitive task.
“When they came back in, we wanted to know whether their pain had lessened and whether their daily lives had improved,” says senior author Laura S. Stone of McGill University.
“We wanted to see if any of the pain-related abnormalities found initially in the brain had at least slowed down or been partially reversed.”
Not only did the team observe recovery in the anatomical function of the brain, but also in its ability to function.
After the subjects were treated, increased cortical thickness in specific areas of the brain that were related to both pain reduction and physical disability was observed and the abnormal brain activity observed initially during an attention-demanding cognitive task was found to have normalized after treatment.
While more research would be needed to confirm whether chronic pain actually causes these changes in the brain, Stone hypothesizes that chronic low back pain, at the very least, maintains these differences.
“If you can make the pain go away with effective treatment, you can reverse these abnormal changes in the brain.”
Researchers at the University of Maryland contributed to the study.
More news from McGill University: www.mcgill.ca/newsroom/
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4 Comments
weirdly enough
Interesting that back pain is often associated with emotions coming from the brain such as stress. So the stress from the brain can cause back pain which can affect the brain! Anyway, during one very stressful time, I got to experience the horror of lower back pain. Luckily a relative told me about some relaxation techniques that relax the muscles in the front of the legs to stop lower back pain. Weirdly enough, they worked. I do not know if he invented them, but they are in the book Pain Free by Peter Egoscue, who is a physical therapist.
Andrew
The matter related to Prescription drug abuse has taken toll to more than half of America and nearly everywhere around the world. This is an astonishing yet true fact that more than approximately seven million people in The United States are consuming prescription pills over the counter without any proper medical assistance meaning any prescription. I have read on the blog of Findrxonline These Prescription medicines are usually the common pain pills, sedatives, stimulants and such common medicines which people feel is just alright to go about consuming. The greatest amount of prescription drug which is being misused and abused to the hilt is the pain killers and most common ones being Vicodin and OxyContin. This Prescription drug is then followed by the tranquilizers which are known as being the next most badly treated prescription drug.
Leonardo Vargas
Fibromyalgia numbness is an annoying disorder. When the appendages are affected by excess numbness, it can become very infuriating and influences your life style and prohibits you from carrying out your daily tasks like writing, eating, holding baggage, driving etc and it even hampers your work life.
However the exact cause of fibromyalgia numbness is still not known. Some state that it is because of pressure on the nerves due to muscle contractions, and that it will go away on leaning against your arm. By doing so the muscle contractions will subside and the nerve will be released.
Leonardo Vargas
Findrxonline
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Were any of these patients using chiropractic manipulation to reduce or eliminate their pain? Epidural injections normally only aleviate pain in less than 50% of patients and only last about 4 months on average. Spinal surgery is now considered to be necessary in about 10% of the cases in which it is used. There was no mention of chiropractic so I assume it was not utilized.