Researchers from the Stanford University School of Medicine have taken a first step toward developing a diagnostic tool that could eliminate a major hurdle in pain medicine -- the dependency on self-reporting to measure the presence or absence of pain. The new tool would use patterns of brain activity to give an objective physiologic assessment of whether someone is in pain.
The scientists used functional magnetic resonance imaging scans of the brain combined with advanced computer algorithms to accurately predict thermal pain 81 percent of the time in healthy subjects, according to a study that will be published Sept. 13 in the online journal PLoS ONE.
"People have been looking for a pain detector for a very long time," said Sean Mackey, MD, PhD, chief of the Division of Pain Management and associate professor of anesthesiology. "We're hopeful we can eventually use this technology for better detection and better treatment of chronic pain."
Researchers stressed that future studies are needed to determine whether these methods will work to measure various kinds of pain, such as chronic pain, and whether they can distinguish accurately between pain and other emotionally arousing states, such as anxiety or depression.
Read more at: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110913172623.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fmind_brain+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Mind+%26+Brain+News%29
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