Chronic Pain and Brain Abnormalities

It is only natural for someone in pain to attend to the body part that hurts. Yet this book tells the story of persistent pain having negative effects on brain function. The contributors, all leading experts in their respective fields of pain electrophysiology, brain imaging, and animal models of pain, strive to synthesize compelling and, in some ways, connected hypotheses with regard to pain-related changes in the brain. Together, they contribute their clinical, academic, and theoretical expertise in a comprehensive overview that attempts to define the broader philosophical context of pain (disentangling sensical from nonsensical claims), list the changes known to take place in the brains of individuals with chronic pain and animal models of pain, address the possible causes and mechanisms underlying these changes, and detail the techniques and analytical methods at our disposal to "visualize" and study these changes. Features: Philosophical and social concepts of pain; testimonials of chronic-pain patients; clinical data from pain patients' brains; advances in noninvasive brain imaging for pain patients; combining theoretical and empirical approaches to the analysis of pain-related brain function; manipulation of brain function in animal models; emerging neurotechnology principles for pain diagnostics and therapeutics.