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PainSci » bibliography » Flor 2012
updated
Tags: mind

One article on PainSci cites Flor 2012: Chronic Pain as a Conditioned Behaviour

PainSci notes on Flor 2012:

This paper explores evidence that people with chronic pain have altered brains and wonky perception. They “propose” this because the evidence is indirect and incomplete. The brain changes seen in pain patients certainly exist, but their meaning is unclear: they might be cause and/or effect, and they may or may not have useful clinical implications. But this author believes that they “require new treatments that focus on the alteration of central pain memories and maladaptive body perception.”

original abstract Abstracts here may not perfectly match originals, for a variety of technical and practical reasons. Some abstacts are truncated for my purposes here, if they are particularly long-winded and unhelpful. I occasionally add clarifying notes. And I make some minor corrections.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: It is proposed that central rather than peripheral factors may be important in pain chronicity. We review recent empirical findings on these processes and discuss implications for treatment and prevention.

RECENT FINDINGS: The literature on neuroimaging of pain and on learning processes shows that learning-induced functional and structural brain changes involving sensorimotor, as well as limbic and frontal, areas are important in the transition from acute to chronic pain. These alterations share many similarities with brain changes in emotional disorders and the specificity for pain needs to be determined. Further important contributors to chronic pain may be disturbed processing of the body image, impaired multisensory integration and faulty feedback from interoceptive processes. These findings have led to new treatment approaches that focus on the extinction of aversive memories, restoration of the body image and normal brain function and include approaches such as brain stimulation, mirror training, virtual reality applications or behavioral extinction training.

SUMMARY: We propose that chronic pain is characterized by learning-related and memory-related plastic changes of the central nervous system with concomitant maladaptive changes in body perception. These alterations require new treatments that focus on the alteration of central pain memories and maladaptive body perception.

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