Chronic pain may be the brain "cheat" your

[] Message: Historically, pain is the medical profession in the face of powerful enemies. Now, more and more has been wounded soldiers of the elderly and hope scientists to unravel the secret of the pain. Chronic pain is caused by what?, is the brain of scientists that created the illusion of "you", and then through the nervous system to let you feel a real pain.

In recent years, stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq by the United States soldiers ' is dangerous, vulnerable to injury. But those who were injured after lucky survivors in the soldiers back home after suffering from chronic pain. To this end, the United States military has increased the "pain" of research efforts.

Overcome the pain, not only for the soldiers on the battlefield is crucial, but also can save many people suffering from chronic pain of the civilian population. Chronic pain is the most common United States, the most difficult to deal with one of the medical symptoms every five United States who is a person who suffers from chronic pain.

The civilian population of chronic pain caused by labour losses and medical cost increases, it is estimated that over the next few years spent in the United States for the treatment of wounded soldiers and chronic pain in total funding will reach $ 3400.

"Pain channel"

At the same time, the scientists ' understanding of the pain is also gradually deepen. Scientists used to think that pain is just after the human injury demonstrated a symptom, but later discovered that this is just a layman's point of view. United States pain Foundation's governing Weir · Robert said: "the public is generally understood as the pain was like a toe injury or fracture and the like, but in fact this is just one aspect of pain. Now matured concept is, the pain itself is a disease. ”

The doctors have learned that human injuries, brain and spinal cord injuries in the reception and transmission of information to be able to form a "pain in the channel," but this channel might hurt after sick and continue to exist for years. Experimental evidence that chronic pain is caused by brain disorders, brain injury records to make a mistake, "manufacturing" out of the body injured, causing the "pain" has been working channel, feeling human last a real pain.

From the point of view of human evolution, the pain is not entirely a bad thing. Acute pain comes from the human body external organs, through which nerve sensors able to tell you: which parts of the body. This alert mechanism allows us to avoid more serious injuries.

However, once this pain develop into chronic pain, the alert function is meaningless. Weir · Luo said that chronic pain is a disease of the nervous system hyperactivity. Human brain will record the physical injuries, the body will pass through certain nerve cells each new pain information and enable these cells into a "channel". For healthy people, once the physical injury is fixed, these neurons will stop transmitting pain information. While some people are suffering from chronic pain, was his body after the injury of nerve cells continue to transmit error information.