Neuroimaging studies of chronic pain

Do Hyung Kang, June Hee Son, Yong Chul Kim, Do Hyung Kang, June Hee Son, Yong Chul Kim

Abstract

The evolution of brain imaging techniques over the last decade has been remarkable. Along with such technical developments, research into chronic pain has made many advances. Given that brain imaging is a non-invasive technique with great spatial resolution, it has played an important role in finding the areas of the brain related to pain perception as well as those related to many chronic pain disorders. Therefore, in the near future, brain imaging techniques are expected to be the key to the discovery of many unknown etiologies of chronic pain disorders and to the subjective diagnoses of such disorders.

Keywords: brain imaging; chronic pain.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
This illustration shows the areas in the brain that process some discriminative components of pain perception, including affective processing, attentional processing, and sensory processing. The thalamus, insula, hippocampus, orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and posterior parietal cortex (PPC) are distinctly active during the attentional processing of pain perception. During sensory processing, the primary and secondary somatosensory cortices (S1, S2) and the insula are involved. The activity of the insula, inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), OFC, ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC), DLPFC, posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) and ACC were distinct during the affective processing of pain. Many researchers hold that the S2 area is also involved in this process.

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