Targeting the brain in chronic pain: the role of cortical body representation
Pain is frustratingly complex. Some people who have terrible injuries report very little pain while others develop terrible pain following a very minor event. This suggests that pain is not related only to the degree of physical injury and as such, other processes must contribute to the experience of pain. A growing body of evidence suggests that people in pain often have an altered perception of their body part. For example, it may feel too big or too small than its actual size. Further, people in pain have disruptions in the evaluation of incoming information from that painful body part and from the space surrounding it.
Interestingly, in these same conditions, we see dysfunctions in the way that the brain represents the painful body part and many of these brain changes correlate to the degree of pain that people are in. This raises the tantalising possibility that if we target the brain via targeting these dysfunctions, then perhaps we can influence pain. This talk will provide a general overview of pain processing, perceptual and sensory dysfunctions, and cortical changes in people with pain. It will also present current research of brain-targeted treatments for chronic pain including perceptual manipulation using bodily illusions.
