Effects of chronic pain on the brain - Lessons from lab rats
Chronic pain can change rats brains and make them more anxious
These rats were surprised to find how much in common they have with humans when it comes to chronic pain.
Are you suffering from chronic pain? You may know somebody who does, as one in five people are likely to be effected by chronic pain at some point in their lives.
If chronic pain is not well managed or controlled, chances are, it’s making changes in the way your nervous system works including how your brain works.
The symptoms of these changes are:
· Being forgetful
· Having difficulty in concentrating
· Feeling quite emotional – sad or crying
· Feeling frustrated and anxious
Some of these might be due to medicines that are taken for chronic pain. However, state of the art imaging techniques like functional MRI scans and observing rats in laboratories explains why these symptoms may be due to pain itself.
Laboratory rats who have an injury resulting in chronic pain, tend to spend much more time in sheltered areas or hugging walls, compared to healthy rats that do not have pain. What’s more, treating their pain and anxiety changes their behaviour back to normal!
Rats in pain also tend to be more forgetful about where they have poked their noses while searching for food or water. This is because pain tends to effect the working of parts of the brain that are concerned with mood and thoughts, most.
It’s difficult to say if the changes in the nervous system are due to pain or because of pain. However, we know treating pain and other symptoms together can reverse these abnormalities in the brain. So there is definitely a link.
How do we use this information practically for benefiting pain treatment in humans?
Pain control with medicines may form part of the treatment, but it needs to cover a lot more, if chronic pain is to be tackled effectively.
It requires ‘rehabilitating’ the nervous system and parts of the brain that have forgotten what is ‘normal’ due to pain. This can be done through a more holistic ‘mind-body’ approach including techniques like meditation, yoga, mindfulness, exercise and movement as a part of a cognitive behavioural therapy based pain management programme.
Studies in Zen meditators and experienced yoga practitioners have shown how this approach can have an effect opposite of what pain does to the nervous system, in rewiring the abnormal connections between nerves and forming new healthy connections.
My Pain App is an innovative cognitive behavioural therapy programme that can help you start on your journey to managing pain using these principles.
Dr Rahul Seewal is a consultant in Pain Medicine at The Chelsea & Westminster Hospital and the Founding Director of My Pain Limited.
The reference study for this article is:
Effect of environment on the long-term consequences of chronic pain
Bushnell, M.C.*; Case, L.K.; Ceko, M.; Cotton, V.A.; Gracely, J.L.; Low, L.A.; Pitcher, M.H.; Villemure, C.
Pain: April 2015 - Volume 156 - Issue - p S42–S49
doi: 10.1097/01.j.pain.0000460347.77341.bd Biennial Review of Pain