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THURSDAY, Dec. 6 (HealthScoutNews) -- Taking a cue from the Marquis de Sade, American researchers have discovered a never-before-seen scientific link between the brain systems for pleasure and pain. Their study, suggesting that the pleasure centers of the brain react in a unique way to pain, provides the first evidence to closely connect two brain systems which previously were thought to be the opposite ends of the same spectrum, the researcher say. Text Continues Below
The researchers, from Massachusetts General Hospital, in Boston, and the National Institute of Drug Abuse, in Baltimore, Md., say the study could point to new ways to diagnose and treat pain. Findings appear in today's issue of Neuron. More 50 million Americans suffer chronic pain, but only a quarter of them receive proper treatment for it, experts say. The study involved eight young men who underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while a heat pad was attached to their hands. While they were scanned for brain activity, specifically in areas known to be involved in pain and pleasure responses, the heat pad was turned on for 25-second intervals at either 106°F or 115°F. The heat, comparable to touching the roof of a car on a hot summer day, was painful but not harmful, says lead study author Lino Becerra. On a scale of zero to 10, with zero indicating no pain, the volunteers rated the pain at 2.3 at 106°F and 7.8 at 115°F. The resulting brain scans surprised the researchers. Not only did the heat stimulate brain areas traditionally linked to pain response, it also activated some areas associated with pleasure. The researchers say the pain triggered brain structures normally activated by reward activities, such as gambling or cocaine use. "Never has somebody seen these reward-only structures, such as the nucleus accumbens or the sublenticular extended amygdala, involved in pain," says Becerra, chief of imaging and analysis at the Center for Functional Pain Neuroimaging and Therapy Research at Massachusetts General Hospital, in Boston. "There's a continuum between reward and pain … They're not separate aspects." Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | Next >>
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