Pain Marked By Specific Brain Signals For The First Time

Patients report pain, often severe and chronic, but until now, we haven’t had objective tests that correlate with that pain. In a search for just that type of test, neuroscientists at UC-San Francisco report their studies on 4 subjects with chronic pain poorly treated with conventional therapy. Each had electrodes implanted in 2 regions of their cerebral cortex and neural signals were obtained multiple times daily over months. During those days, the patients completed body maps representing the sites and intensity of their pain. When the data were analysed, they indicated that signals from the brain’s orbitofrontal cortex correctly predicted, for the first time, the occurrence of chronic pain. If such data can be gathered in a less invasive way, it could not only lead the way toward an test for chronic pain but also some definitive therapy….someday soon.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37217725/

#pain #testing #orbitofrontalcortex