Chronic Pain Hurts our Brains

clipped from psychcentral.com Chronic Pain Drains the Brain clipped from psychcentral.com The means by which persistent or chronic pain affects an individual’s ability to live a ‘normal’ life has been clarified by investigators at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. People with persistent pain live a life that often includes coping with a host of symptoms beyond the non-stop sensation of throbbing pain. They also have trouble sleeping, are often depressed, anxious and even have difficulty making simple decisions. Scientists found that in a healthy brain all the regions exist in a state of equilibrium. When one region is active, the others quiet down. But in people with chronic pain, a front region of the cortex mostly associated with emotion “never shuts up,” said Dante Chialvo, lead author and associate research professor of physiology at the Feinberg School. This is the first demonstration of brain disturbances in chronic pain patients not directly related to the sensation of pain.