Chronic Back Pain Shrinks Brain

It can reduce gray matter by 11 percent in one year,

researchers say

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.

-- Robert Preidt

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

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