Chronic Back Pain Can Shrink Your Brain
Main Category: Back PainAlso Included In: Neurology / Neuroscience
Article Date: 23 Nov 2004 - 11:00 PDT
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opinions'Chronic Back Pain Can Shrink Your Brain'
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US researchers have found that back pain can shrink the thalamus, this is a part of the brain that helps you make decisions and interact with other people. The scientists, from Northwestern University, USA, found that people with back pain had less activity in the thalamus.
You can read about this study in the Journal of Neuroscience.
Team leader, Dr Vania Apkarian, stressed that they will need to carry out more research. However, they reckon that some of the shrinkage might be permanent.
Dr Vania Apkarian said we may have to treat pain earlier and more aggressively to prevent any shrinkage.
52 people took part in this trial. 26 volunteers suffered from chronic back pain, while the other 26 were healthy.
Those with chronic pain had experienced shrinkage of up to 11%. The human loses that amount of brain after ten to twenty years of ageing. The longer the pain, the more the patients lost - about 1.3 cubic centimetres per year (for patients with chronic pain).
Dr Vania Apkarian stressed that they are not completely sure whether the loss is permanent - they need to carry out more studies. "It is possible that some of the observed decreased gray matter shown in this study reflects tissue shrinkage without substantial neuronal loss, suggesting that proper treatment would reverse this portion of the decreased brain matter."
Visit our back pain section for the latest news on this subject.
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25 May. 2012. <http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/16784.php>
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http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/16784.php.
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Visitor Opinions (latest shown first)
Cortical atrophy
posted by Paulette Moore on 22 Jan 2006 at 6:09 amI also had cluster headaches for years and I have just found out that I also have the atrophy.I am reading everything that I can so that I will be informed as to what I can do.Paulette
I previously noted this brain shrinkage theory with respect to chronic cluster headache syndrome
posted by Attorney Howard M. Rosenstein on 30 Nov 2004 at 2:31 amBefore I ever read the findings of this "back pain", "brain shrinkage" article that went public, I was already preparing a letter, presenting the connection of brain shrinkage to suffers of chronic pain with respect to chronic headache suffers, in particular, long term cluster headache syndrome sufferers. See attached letter I previously wrote in Texas to the Diamond Headache Clinic in Chicago Illinois.
"howard rosenstein"
Subject: My theory connecting long term cluster headaches with coritical atrophy
To: clinic@diamondheadache.com
Dear Dr. Seymour Diamond,
I am currently a Texas attorney. I was a patient of
yours for about 8 years. You may or may not recall me.
My father was a Chicago Policeman for 40 years. He
and my mother brought me to you. There is not much
you can do for me now, but I felt this information may
be helpful to you in your studies to help others in
the future.
My name is Howard Mark Rosenstein. From around 1976
to 1984,I was a cluster headache syndrome patient of
yours from age 16 to about 24, until I moved to Texas.
I moved to Texas, but the headaches never stopped,
until I reached the age of about 35.
The pain from those headaches was so unbearable that I
do not know how I kept from committing suicide. It
was like my head was exploding behind my eye. The
five medicines seldom if ever alleviated any of the
unbearable pain. I cannot tell you how many times I
had to go to the hospital to have doctors put me to
sleep, just to make the pain go away. The pain
followed me even as I worked as a Dallas Police
Officer in 1984. I am now a Texas lawyer. I have
been practicing law for 19 years.
I have three children. My eight year old boy
suffered with terrible headaches and constant strepp
throat for almost two years, until we took his
tounsils out. He has not experienced those headaches
anymore. I have a 16 year girl who experienced
headaches growing up, but not as severe as mine. This
is only background. The reason I am writing to you
now, is that I have a theory.
I am 45 years old now. I have been diagnosed with
cortical atrophy now. The doctors said that it was
like my brain had suffered from long term trauma.
Perhaps the type of trauma suffered from that of a
boxer over a period of time. The only problem is that
my head never suffered any overt trauma. The only
trauma my brain sufferred from was the cluster
headaches for about 18 years.
I was in a car accident when I was 16, but that was
only after the cluster headaches already started, and
I only broke a few bones in that accident. It did not
prevent me from running marathons or doing anything
else in life.
My theory is simple. The trauma to my brain over 18
years of suffering with cluster headaches caused it to
shrink in response to the pain and vascular trauma
from said headaches. It is shrinking to eliminate
that part of the brain causing the problem. It
apparently has been shrinking over the years. At
about age 35 it apparently shrunk to where that
portion of the brain triggering the headaches could
not function anymore.
Before I left Chicago, you told me that it was
possible that at a certain age, I would outgrow the
headaches,i.e., that at a certain age, they just might
stop. The headaches did disappear. However,other
things happened in this process. At age 40, my vision
started to go bad. Both my eyes lost their ability to
see clearly. Things are blurry. There is much less
light coming into my left eye and I lost some sight in
my right eye. A few years ago, I suffered an optic
nerve stroke, while I was sleeping that effected my
right optic nerve. My right optic nerve stroked out
while I slept after the headaches stopped and I became
partially blind in my right eye. All the eye
specialists here call is ischemic optic neuropathy.
This vascular side effect of this process might be
interesting to note.
I just thought I would share this information with
you, for two reasons. 1. Since I was such a long term
patient of yours, I figured that a long term follow up
of a cluster headache syndrome patient that has not
committed suicide, or is still functioning could be
helpful in your clinics studies that are designed to
help others.
2. Perhaps this information regarding corical atrophy
in a cluster headache syndrome problem might be
helpful to understand the etiology of this problem, or
its long term vascular results. Perhaps this could
lead to a drug that could reach that part of the
brain responsible for triggering these cluster
headaches. It is possible that the vascular triggers
for such headaches actually stem from a certain part
of the brain, not the back of the neck or behind the
eye. The vascular result of a stroke of the right
optic nerve may actually stem from a vascular problem
in the brain, as it relates to the brain dealing with
the vasuclar insult it suffers from due to the trauma
of such cluster headaches.
Feel free to contact me if you find any of this theory
helpful. I would certainly like to know if my theory
connecting long term cluster headache sufferers with
cortical atrophy has any merit. I guess Ill copyright
it if you think it has merit. My information is as
follows. Attorney Howard M. Rosenstein
1309 B. West Abram Arlington, Texas
76013
817-261-4213 You have my email on this
transmission. It is "howros2004@yahoo.com"
Thank you for taking the time to review this.
Sincerely,
Howard M. Rosenstein
__________________________________
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