14 DAY TRIAL // Doctors have long since wondered why people with similar injuries can go on to either develop chronic pain or not. A new study by Northwestern University experts says that the pain is actually all in the patients' heads.
The researchers found that areas of the brain involved in controlling emotional and motivational behaviors are also involved in feeling pain. The more these areas communicate with each other, the more likely an injured patient becomes to experience chronic pain, PsychCentral reports.
Since this condition affects around 30 to 40 million people in the US alone, the new research could have far-reaching implications for public healthcare systems, while also ameliorating the quality of life for countless people.
“For the first time we can explain why people who may have the exact same initial pain either go on to recover or develop chronic pain,” expert A. Vania Apakarian writes in the latest issue of the top journal Nature Neuroscience, as quoted by PsychCentral.