Pain is a complex sensory and emotional experience involving multiple pathways of the central nervous system, and these pathways are critical for different aspects of the pain experience. Recent advances in neuroimaging have completely changed the way we conceptualize pain processing and have led to a fundamentally new understanding of clinical pain, particularly chronic pain. However, two things are still missing for pain treatment: an objective pain test and sensitive drugs to treat pain subtypes. These barriers make it difficult to use analgesics, and side effects and drug abuse have become major problems in drug treatment. Therefore, the role of non-pharmacological treatments in pain management is becoming increasingly important.
Recent studies support the wider use of non-pharmacological pain treatments, especially in patients with chronic pain that is inadequately relieved by medication alone. An essential component of traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture involves the insertion of very thin needles through the skin at specific points on the body. Similarly, transcutaneous electronic nerve stimulation (TENS) is a treatment for pain relief in which neurons are stimulated recurrently via electrodes placed on the skin. Its mechanisms include endogenous pain control systems, brain plasticity, and nonspecific effects (including but not limited to placebo effects). Similar to pain management, there are two hurdles in the use of non-pharmacological treatments: the mechanisms behind the treatments and the difficulty in identifying the optimal control population or treatment. Neuroimaging approaches (including functional magnetic resonance imaging, positron emission tomography, electroencephalography, and other approaches) are potent tools that provide unique, noninvasive in vivo views of pain processing and nonpharmacologic treatments.
This Research Topic is proposed to better understand the brain patterns of pain processing and non-pharmacological treatments in humans. Topics of interest include:
- Key pathological features of acute/ chronic/ experimental pain;
- Comparison of neurological features between different pain disorders;
- Research on various non-pharmalogical therapies and influences on pain processing;
- Neuroimaging-based features of pain neuropathology, including meta-analysis of activation probability estimation;
- Neuroimaging-based evidence for non-pharmacological treatments of pain;
- Neuroimaging-based mechanisms of non-pharmacological treatments;
- Innovative neuroimaging technologies for pain research
Pain is a complex sensory and emotional experience involving multiple pathways of the central nervous system, and these pathways are critical for different aspects of the pain experience. Recent advances in neuroimaging have completely changed the way we conceptualize pain processing and have led to a fundamentally new understanding of clinical pain, particularly chronic pain. However, two things are still missing for pain treatment: an objective pain test and sensitive drugs to treat pain subtypes. These barriers make it difficult to use analgesics, and side effects and drug abuse have become major problems in drug treatment. Therefore, the role of non-pharmacological treatments in pain management is becoming increasingly important.
Recent studies support the wider use of non-pharmacological pain treatments, especially in patients with chronic pain that is inadequately relieved by medication alone. An essential component of traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture involves the insertion of very thin needles through the skin at specific points on the body. Similarly, transcutaneous electronic nerve stimulation (TENS) is a treatment for pain relief in which neurons are stimulated recurrently via electrodes placed on the skin. Its mechanisms include endogenous pain control systems, brain plasticity, and nonspecific effects (including but not limited to placebo effects). Similar to pain management, there are two hurdles in the use of non-pharmacological treatments: the mechanisms behind the treatments and the difficulty in identifying the optimal control population or treatment. Neuroimaging approaches (including functional magnetic resonance imaging, positron emission tomography, electroencephalography, and other approaches) are potent tools that provide unique, noninvasive in vivo views of pain processing and nonpharmacologic treatments.
This Research Topic is proposed to better understand the brain patterns of pain processing and non-pharmacological treatments in humans. Topics of interest include:
- Key pathological features of acute/ chronic/ experimental pain;
- Comparison of neurological features between different pain disorders;
- Research on various non-pharmalogical therapies and influences on pain processing;
- Neuroimaging-based features of pain neuropathology, including meta-analysis of activation probability estimation;
- Neuroimaging-based evidence for non-pharmacological treatments of pain;
- Neuroimaging-based mechanisms of non-pharmacological treatments;
- Innovative neuroimaging technologies for pain research