Neuroscience letters
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Neuroscience letters · Jun 2012
ReviewThe use of functional neuroimaging to evaluate psychological and other non-pharmacological treatments for clinical pain.
A large number of studies have provided evidence for the efficacy of psychological and other non-pharmacological interventions in the treatment of chronic pain. While these methods are increasingly used to treat pain, remarkably few studies focused on the exploration of their neural correlates. The aim of this article was to review the findings from neuroimaging studies that evaluated the neural response to distraction-based techniques, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), clinical hypnosis, mental imagery, physical therapy/exercise, biofeedback, and mirror therapy. ⋯ There was also evidence for decreased pain-related activations in afferent pain regions and limbic structures. If future studies will address the technical and methodological challenges of today's experiments, neuroimaging might have the potential of segregating the neural mechanisms of different treatment interventions and elucidate predictive and mediating factors for successful treatment outcomes. Evaluations of treatment-related brain changes (functional and structural) might also allow for sub-grouping of patients and help to develop individualized treatments.
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We briefly summarize recent advances regarding brain functional representation of chronic pain, reorganization of resting state brain activity, and of brain anatomy with chronic pain. Based on these observations and recent theoretical advances regarding network architecture properties, we develop a general concept of the dynamic interplay between anatomy and function as the brain progresses into persistent pain, and outline the role of mesolimbic learning mechanisms that are likely involved in maintenance of chronic pain.
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Neuroscience letters · Jun 2012
ReviewInsights gained into pain processing from patients with focal brain lesions.
The recognition that dissociated sensory loss affecting selectively pain and temperature results from lesions of the operculo-insular cortex is due to Biemond in 1956. This contrasted with the prevailing view that the sensory aspects of pain did not imply regions above the thalamus. ⋯ Operculo-insular pain (parasylvian pain) is a distinct entity that can be clinically suspected and objectively diagnosed with combined radiological and electrophysiological methods, in particular evoked potentials to spinothalamic (laser) input. The region comprising the posterior insula and medial operculum may deserve being considered as a third somatosensory cortex (S3) contributing to the spinothalamic attributes of somatic perception.
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Neuroscience letters · Jun 2012
ReviewMindfulness meditation-related pain relief: evidence for unique brain mechanisms in the regulation of pain.
The cognitive modulation of pain is influenced by a number of factors ranging from attention, beliefs, conditioning, expectations, mood, and the regulation of emotional responses to noxious sensory events. Recently, mindfulness meditation has been found attenuate pain through some of these mechanisms including enhanced cognitive and emotional control, as well as altering the contextual evaluation of sensory events. ⋯ Converging lines of neuroimaging evidence reveal that mindfulness meditation-related pain relief is associated with unique appraisal cognitive processes depending on expertise level and meditation tradition. Moreover, it is postulated that mindfulness meditation-related pain relief may share a common final pathway with other cognitive techniques in the modulation of pain.
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Neuroscience letters · Jun 2012
ReviewPain and emotion in the insular cortex: evidence for functional reorganization in major depression.
Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is among the top causes of disability worldwide and many patients with depression experience pain symptoms. Little is known regarding what makes depressed persons feel like they are in pain. An increasing number of neuroimaging studies show that both physical pain and depression involve the insular cortex. ⋯ Importantly, emotion-related peaks in depressed patients were shifted to the dorsal anterior insula, where regions related to physical pain in healthy subjects are located. This shift was reflected in the observation that median z-coordinates of emotion-related responses in the left hemisphere were significantly larger in depressed patients than in healthy controls. This shift of emotion-related responses to the dorsal insula, i.e., where pain-processing takes place in healthy subjects, may play a role in "emotional allodynia" - a notion that individuals with MDD experience pain in response to stimuli that are normally not painful.