How A Wandering Brain Can Help People Cope With Pain : Shots - Health News : NPR

When some people are in pain, the experience is so intense that they can't think of anything else. But others can turn their minds elsewhere and feel better. Why? The difference may be due in part to brain wiring, researchers say, and knowing more about how it works may someday make it easier to match people with effective pain treatments. Prescription painkillers like Vicodin don't work for everyone, and alternative treatments like meditation or cognitive behavioral therapy work for some but not all. Right now, doctors can't tell in advance which pain treatment will work best for a patient. The problem intrigued Karen Davis, a neuroscientist at the University of Toronto's Centre for the Study of Pain, who was in misery from a pinched nerve in her neck. But grant application deadlines loomed, so she just kept working. "I tried a lot of painkillers, and it didn't do much," Davis tells Shots. But she noticed that when she was focused on her work, the pain didn't bother her as much. "I don't know if the pain went away, but I certainly didn't notice it." So Aaron Kucyi, a graduate student in Davis' lab, recreated the painful experience with small electric shocks to volunteers' wrists. After each zap the researchers asked how the test subjects were feeling and what they were thinking about. Some people's thoughts wandered from the pain, while others couldn't disengage. Then they gave people cognitive tests w...
Source: Psychology of Pain - Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs