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Brain signals for chronic pain discovered, may help create treatments

San FranciscoEdited By: Manas JoshiUpdated: May 24, 2023, 05:34 PM IST
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(Image for representation) Photograph:(ANI)

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The findings in the study may prove useful for patients experiencing chronic pain

We all experience physical pain. Sometimes chronic. Researchers have now identified brainwaves that reveal just how much pain a person is experiencing. The findings of the research can help develop new treatment techniques for people experiencing debilitating pain. The study has been published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, reports The Guardian

“What we’ve learned is that chronic pain can successfully be tracked and predicted in the real world, while patients are walking the dog, or at home, when they get up in the morning, and when they are going about their lives,” said Prasad Shirvalkar, a neurologist and lead researcher on the project at the University of California, San Francisco. He was quoted by The Guardian.

The news outlet reported that there was a silent epidemic in the UK alone in which 28 million adults were experiencing chronic pain.

The study

For their study, Shirvalkar and his colleagues implanted electrodes in four patients who had intractable chronic pain. These devices allowed the researchers to measure activity in two areas of brains, the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC)

The volunteers were asked to complete short surveys several times a day. The surveys were on the strength and type of pain they were experiencing. Researchers then recorded snapshots of their brain activity. With survey responses and brain recordings, the scientists found out that they could train an algorithm to predict pain a person was experiencing on the basis of signals in the OFC region of the brain.

“We’ve developed an objective biomarker for that type of pain,” said Shirvalkar.

“Chronic pain is not just a more enduring version of acute pain, it is fundamentally different in the brain,” Shirvalkar said. “The hope is, as we understand this better, that we can use the information to develop personalised brain stimulation therapies for the most severe forms of pain.”

He was quoted by the Guardian.

“If this research is successfully extended, it offers not only the opportunity to develop an objective measurement of some types of pain, but also to enhance our understanding of the biological mechanisms,” said Prof Blair Smith to The Guardian.

Professor Smith is an expert in chronic pain at the University of Dundee.



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