Most BiM readers will be familiar with a body of research indicating that chronic pain is associated with apparent structural changes in the brain. We’ve discussed this issue here at length (see here and here). These findings, principally of reductions in grey matter density across a smattering of brain regions, have led researchers, myself … [Read more...]
VBM – voxel-based morphometry or very bad measurement?
January 22, 2013 by 3 Comments
Brain imaging technology has become a big player in the world of pain research in the last 2 decades. In more recent years voxel based morphometry (VBM), which allows us to look at structural changes in the brain (specifically neuronal matter density) has produced some eyebrow raising research in chronic pain.It is this technology that produced … [Read more...]
A big hole in the control? Transcranial direct current stimulation blinding on trial
November 30, 2012 by Leave a Comment
You may or may not have heard of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), but it is non-invasive method for stimulating the brain with low intensity electrical currents. Over the last decade or so there has been plenty of basic physiology research demonstrating that tDCS directly modulates cortical excitability. Neatly, anodal stimulation … [Read more...]
The search for the ‘hurt’…..in the brain?
October 2, 2012 by 11 Comments
It was quite the line up at the recent IASP conference: Tracey, Apkarian, Flor, Crombez, Iannetti, Moseley …the groupies were gathering around a melting pot of pain-full ideas.One such thought provoking notion was the search for “the ‘hurt’ in the brain”, in association with a staunch refuting of the use of the ‘pain signature’ … [Read more...]
Not a dry eye in my house. Paralympics, pain and plasticity.
September 18, 2012 by 5 Comments
I LOVE the Olympics. And didn't London put on a stellar show - I have really enjoyed watching you Brits hold up the mirror and get rather surprised at how good you really are at stuff - the Olympic medal haul from Team GB was truly magnificent of course. I remember how Uber-Australian we all became during and for a while after the Sydney 2000 … [Read more...]
Just how much can the coloured blobs tell us
July 3, 2012 by 2 Comments
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...]
Vania Apkarian and the holy grail
May 29, 2012 by 9 Comments
I love hearing Vania Apkarian speak. He is always so positive about his data and so forthright in his views that you have no doubt what he thinks and no doubt that he loves going to work. This workshop I went to today was no exception – it was Apkarian at his best. And, quite possibly, he has good reason to be excited. His group at NorthWestern … [Read more...]
Timing is everything
December 22, 2011 by 4 Comments
Human brain mapping doesn’t go back as far as one might think. The first brain activation studies used positron emission tomography (PET) back in the late 1980s. Functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, followed in the early 90s and went on to radically change neuroimaging [1].Given that it’s such early days for brain mapping, … [Read more...]
Regret, empathy, espresso
December 9, 2011 by 2 Comments
I’ve got news for those of us who thought that Italians just sat around wearing designer sunglasses and drinking fine coffee; it turns out we were wrong. This fMRI study by a group in Milan is a pearler, and I urge anyone who’s interested to have a look at it.[1]First was a look into empathy: these investigators wanted to know whether … [Read more...]
Where we see it is not where it is: integrating vision and touch through a mirror
November 8, 2011 by 1 Comment
If you haven’t seen it before, I recommend this footage showing the moment when a tribe on Papua New Guinea meets a white man for the first time in 1976. Although these people had likely seen the reflection of their own body in rivers before, look at their reactions when, for the first time, they see themselves reflected in a mirror (around min … [Read more...]
Is it time the memory worked again?
November 1, 2011 by Leave a Comment
I was reading Valery Legrain’s blog and it caused me to reflect on what sort of daily use I give my working memory. Have I needed to mentally rehearse a phone number while dialling it? No, my phone dials whoever I ask it to. Have I bothered to calculate the amount of change I’m going to get at the checkout because the young assistant looks like … [Read more...]
Someone else’s pain—Are you in or out?
October 25, 2011 by 2 Comments
One of the bits of the brain I find the toughest to understand is the insula. We hear about it when the “pain matrix” is discussed. The insula is part of what is currently understood as the medial pain system— involved in assigning meaning, emotion and affect to the pain experience[1]. Various neuroimaging studies have found activity in … [Read more...]
Limericks are good for your health. Or for remembering disinhibition anyway.
July 19, 2011 by 3 Comments
Some of you may remember that we ran a limerick competition. Well we now have a winner. Alison Klossner, by popular vote, has taken out the very big prize of a few hundred dollars worth of Cynergy Professional education seminars. Alison's limerick captures that intriguing pathophysiological characteristic of people in chronic pain - cortical … [Read more...]
rTMS and chronic pain: Our two penny’s worth
July 5, 2011 by 9 Comments
Some of you might have heard of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) and its use in chronic pain. Basically rTMS uses magnetic fields to generate electrical currents within the brain. This is a direct way of altering neuronal firing or excitability in the brain and a number of research groups have been investigating whether it might … [Read more...]
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