![]() In the future, such pain evaluations may influence workmen’s compensation decisions about disability benefits, and detect if a patient is faking pain to obtain drugs. When people come to an emergency room with what they think is a heart attack, doctors need to ascertain whether an ache or twinge actually originates in the heart or, for example, in the esophagus. Instead of dealing with general complaints of stomach or chest distress, doctors may be able to determine if the hurt comes from the pancreas, the heart, or some other organ. “By defining brain circuitry that’s specific to the type of distress a patients feels, we can determine the best treatment,” Borsook notes. Instead of asking a patient to rate her or his pain on a subjective scale of 1-to-10, physicians can obtain a direct measurement from the brain. This new pain register provides, for the first time, a way to objectively assess chronic pain, the researchers say. The scans showed activity not only in brain regions typically associated with pain but also in those devoted to enjoying pleasurable things like food, drugs, and sex. Working with Assistant Professor of Radiology Lino Becerra, Hans Brieter, and other colleagues at Massachusetts General Hospital, he heated the hands of eight volunteers enough to hurt, while they underwent brain scanning. That won’t make you cry until you laugh, but it’s likely to lead to better ways to measure and treat chronic pain.įrustrated by not being able to help patients with unremitting pain, David Borsook, associate professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School, decided to see precisely what happens in people’s brains when they feel pain. Scientists have found pain in the same brain circuits that give you pleasure. Such scans could lead to the first objective method for measuring chronic pain. Lino Becerra (standing) and David Borsook compare brain scans of people feeling pain and those feeling warmth. ![]()
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