Emotional state ‘can determine pain response’
The emotional state of the brain can explain why different individuals do not respond the same way to similar injuries, say scientists.
Some recover fully while others remain in constant pain.
Brain scan studies showed for the first time how chronic pain emerges as a result of an emotional response to an injury.
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Hide AdThe process involves interaction between two brain regions, the frontal cortex and nucleus accumbens.
Lead scientist Professor Vania Apakarian, from Northwestern University in Chicago, US, said: “The injury itself is not enough to explain the ongoing pain. It has to do with the injury combined with the state of the brain.”
The more emotionally the brain reacted to the initial injury, the more likely it was that pain will persist after the injury has healed, he said.
Prof Apakarian added: “It may be that these sections of the brain are more excited to begin with in certain individuals, or there may be genetic and environmental influences that predispose these brain regions to interact at an excitable level.”
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Hide AdThe research involved 40 volunteers who had all suffered an episode of back pain lasting one to four months.
Four brain scans were carried out on each participant over the course of one year.
The results are published in the journal Nature Neuroscience.