Research into the role of the brain in chronic pain
All those fabulous people who did Ride for Pain at your place! have completed their rides and those who could sent their photos and movies in. Click on the gallery pics and they get bigger. In no particular order here are.... The Norse Vikings - Norway httpv://youtu.be/w0656e_4FRAMore pics here and for you keenies click on the … [Read more...]
While pain may be a universal experience, one experience that can often plague and frustrate everyone is that time when something works one moment but then all of a sudden doesn’t work the next. If you’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing this you’ll find that it applies to many things in life whether it be the temperamental office … [Read more...]
One of the best workshops I attended at the IASP congress in Milano was on placebo analgesia, run by three very classy speakers: Luana Colloca, Ulrike Bingel, and Regine Klinger.I learnt lots about the neurobiological mechanisms of placebo and nocebo, and came away with lots to ponder. This is what I learnt:The rostral anterior cingulate … [Read more...]
“Variability is the law of life, and as no two faces are the same, so no two bodies are alike, and no two individuals react alike and behave alike under the abnormal conditions which we know as disease."- William Osler On the Educational Value of the Medical Society, In Aequanimitas, p.331 As we know there have been any number of chronic … [Read more...]
I just read a fascinating paper by Pollatos and colleagues[1] in a recent issue of Pain. This paper evaluated the relationship between interoception (ie, the ability to consciously perceive signals from the body) and pain perception. This study was based on the theory that emotive stimuli initiate changes in physiological and bodily processes and … [Read more...]
And now you’re going to pay! Perceptions of injustice can emerge from a variety of conditions such as injury as the result of another’s actions – or in the case of not installing appropriate safety procedures – inactions - the experience of undeserved or irreparable loss or if the individual is exposed to a situation that transgresses human … [Read more...]
When we ask whether something in medicine is validated by science, the basic approach is to demonstrate biological plausibility (basic science research) as well as actual real-world efficacy (public health research). In other words, it is more interesting when something that works is actually supported by known biological mechanisms. We feel that … [Read more...]
Scientific conferences usually have a poster section which provide a rich and condensed source of some of the research that is currently being done around the globe. The International Association for the Study of Pain congress in Milan had a huge array, hundreds of new posters every day, ranging from sleep disorders to the genetic determinants … [Read more...]
This is an auspicious day. On this day in 2009 BiM published its first blog post. We have come a long way since a conversation a bit over three years ago when Heidi persuaded Lorimer to try blogging as a new way to help overcome the divide between scientist and clinician.Now we have about 3,800 visits to the site EVERY week from all over the … [Read more...]
I am currently on the train to Wauchope, NSW to visit my husband who is doing a rural medical placement. Now in my head, I decided that train food would be shocking and so when low and behold, I got my meal, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it was not only edible but quite…delicious? I know! It knocked me for one too. However, this … [Read more...]
When it comes to treating someone in pain we have one way of knowing if our treatment has effected pain relief, and that is the patient’s verbal report. Perhaps another way of knowing whether pain has changed is to look at what’s happening in the brain. Well, this review is addressing precisely this question. Presented here[1] are the … [Read more...]
Many of us here at BiM went to the Festival de NOI a couple of weeks ago. It was fab. However, we know that most of you couldn't make it and we thought we would briefly recap some of the talks so you can feel the passion for yourselves. Here is the first one.....This morning in the practice where I work, I overheard a male patient telling one … [Read more...]
There is an old and well known adage that stress causes negative health outcomes including the formation of gastric ulcers, heart disease, and cancer. How this takes place in any specific individual is horribly difficult to sort out due to the multiple systems and factors that are involved (we could be lost in a sea of confounders). However, … [Read more...]
I made up the above title to highlight a small recurring problem in how media frequently portrays science: less than accurately! Especially in the headlines! Who would have thought that my headline actually spoke of a WW2 veteran who used crutches while taking part in a randomised controlled trial?Why am I writing this? The Telegraph! This … [Read more...]
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