May 4, 2007
Pain Is All in the Mind
We’ve all heard the phrase ‘mind over matter’ before; it’s such a valuable thing to practice and really shows us that anything is possible. Many lessons teach us the power of positive thinking; and the law of attraction has never been more in the public spotlight. Controlling your thoughts is a phenomenon that we have to take advantage of.
Now some of the best researchers from around the world are revealing that it’s actually possible to think away pain. This is a massive development for anyone who is suffering from chronic pain, where the usual methods such as traditional medicines and drugs fail.
I found this great article that uncovers these findings and shows what great impact this could have on so many people’s lives.
Think Away The Pain
by Rachel Metz
Pain can be mysterious, untreatable and debilitating, and its causes can be unknown. But if you could see the pain — or, at least, your brain’s reaction to it — you might be able to master it.
A study from researchers at Stanford University and MRI technology company Omneuron suggests that’s possible, and the results could lead to better therapies for those suffering from crippling chronic pain.
The researchers asked people in pain to try to control a pain-regulating region of the brain by watching activity in that area from inside a real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, machine. Initial results showed subjects could reduce their pain, some quite dramatically.
It’s the first evidence that humans can take control of a specific region of the brain, and thereby decrease pain, said Stanford professor Sean Mackey, who co-wrote the paper, which was published last week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“(Similar to) going to a gym and working muscle using weights, here we’re using the real-time fMRI technology to exercise a certain brain region,” he said.
Study co-leader and Omneuron CEO Christopher deCharms said for many people with chronic pain, available treatments like medication or surgery simply don’t work. But this exercise, which researchers have termed “neuroimaging therapy,” could one day help some of the millions of Americans who suffer from untreatable chronic pain.
In the study, eight healthy subjects who’d been subjected to a painful stimulus and eight chronic pain patients underwent a series of fMRIs. The images tracked activity in the brain’s rostral anterior cingulate cortex — an area deCharms said is related to pain. Subjects watched this area on a monitor in real time during the procedure. Prompted by researchers’ suggestions of trying to lessen their own pain by ignoring it or imagining it as benign, they set out in a mental game of hot-and-cold to lessen their discomfort.
Twenty-eight healthy subjects and four pain patients were also put into control groups that tried to control pain by viewing other patients’ brain data or using other mental strategies, but no fMRIs. These tactics didn’t show a significant reduction in pain, deCharms said.
The pain patients reported that the fMRI helped them decrease their overall pain 64 percent. Healthy subjects said they saw a 23 percent increase in their ability to control the strength of their pain, and a 38 percent increase in their ability to master its unpleasantness.
“I think most people found it very exciting to be able to watch the activity in their own brain, moment by moment, as it took place,” deCharms said.