depressing article...be forewarned

May 17, 2005

I was doing some research on Alzheimer's because I think my aunt is displaying

some symptoms. At any rate, came across this wonderfully, upbeat article about

back pain and its affect on the brain (read sarcasm into this sentence....)

Sorry for the bad news, but on the positive side, another article I read (this

one may state it also) said it had to do with pain causing a person to be in a

negative state ... perceiving their life as not as sucessful as the next

person's. So, we just need to make sure we keep each other upbeat! :-)

Have a great day.

Kathy

Chronic Back Pain Shrinks Brain

MONDAY, Nov. 22 (HealthDayNews) -- Chronic back pain can shrink the gray matter

in your brain by as much as 11 percent in one year, the same amount of brain

density that's lost in 10 to 20 years of normal aging, says a Northwestern

University study.

The research, published in the Nov. 23 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience,

found that every year of chronic pain results in a loss of 1.3 cubic centimeters

of gray matter, the part of your brain that processes memory and information.

Researchers used structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and other analytic

methods to compare brain images of 26 people with chronic back pain and 26

healthy people. All of the people with back pain had suffered unrelenting pain

for more than a year.

" Given that, by definition, chronic pain is a state of continuous persistent

perception with associated negative affect and stress, one mechanistic

explanation for the decreased gray matter is overuse atrophy caused by

excitotoxic and inflammatory mechanisms, " lead researcher A. Vania Apkarian, an

associate professor of physiology, said in a prepared statement.

He and his colleagues said it's possible that some of the gray matter shrinkage

in people with chronic back pain occurs without substantial loss of neurons.

That suggest that proper treatment could reverse at least some of the gray

matter loss.

At least 25 percent of Americans experience back pain, and a quarter of those

people suffer chronic and unrelenting back pain.

-- Preidt

SOURCE: Northwestern University, news release, Nov. 22, 2004

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