There is new hope for fixing chronic pain. The mouse brain amygdala has a region that can profoundly damp the sensation of pain. The amygdala harbors protocols for fight-or-flight and general anxiety.
Sufferers of chronic pain don't need to be reminded every minute of every day that something is wrong. They got the message. They deserve a break.
Previous searches were for brain locations that turn ON pain, hoping to disable the ON switch. This report describes a region that actively turns OFF pain. A stimulus instead of an antagonist may do the trick.
The source paper in Nature is linked here. The research was into why general anesthesia works. They found a population of cells in the amygdala that were stimulated by it.
No comments:
Post a Comment