Using MRI brain imaging technology to examine 26 people with chronic back pain, Feinberg School of Medicine physiologist A. Vania Apkarian found their brains had 5 to 11 percent less neocortical gray matter than the brains of normal people – “equivalent to the gray matter volume lost in 10-20 years of normal aging,” he wrote.

“If the elements of the circuitry that one needs to control pain are the ones that we are losing, it may be exactly why we do not have adequate medications for such patients,” Apkarian said.

“It’s important that pain sufferers seek treatment and that people don’t try to be stoic about their pain… By reducing the pain as quickly as one can, that reduces the probability of having long-term permanent effects.” said Catherine Bushnell of McGill University’s Center for Research on Pain

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