Researchers have used one of the two 7T MRI instruments in Australia at the University of Melbourne’s Melbourne Brain Centre Imaging Unit (MBCIU) – supported by NIF and the Brain and Mind Centre at the University of Sydney – to map brain control of pain relief from placebos.
There is hope about how this research could positively impact people especially with chronic pain, via new non-opioid treatments for pain that are non-invasive, more effective and personalised, say researchers, in this article about the study.
Key to this pathway is understanding that different parts of the brainstem control the response to pain in different parts of the body. Professor Luke Henderson (School of Medical Sciences, Brain and Mind Centre) says there is now “a blueprint for how the brain controls pain in a spatially organised way”.
Using the 7T MRI, an extremely powerful brain-imaging instrument, study lead Dr Lewis Crawford (School of Medical Sciences, Brain and Mind Centre) said they found that “upper parts of the brainstem were more active when relieving facial pain, while lower regions were engaged for arm or leg pain” when they used a placebo cream to ‘relieve’ volunteers’ pain on the face, arm or leg.
Finding that different parts of the brainstem that controlled pain is fascinating news for scientists. As per the article, Dr Crawford says that “the brain’s natural pain relief system is more nuanced than we thought” and works “in a highly coordinated, anatomically precise system.”
NIF is proud to have supported this work and congratulates the University of Sydney team, their colleagues and the University of Melbourne team.
READ MORE (and image) via the original article by the University of Sydney.