Neuroscience

A handy lesson about pain and the brain in stroke survivors

A world-first study of stroke survivors shows how chronic pain can alter body perception, with the brain tricking patients into believing their affected hand is a different size, increasing the risk of accidents.

Psychology & Psychiatry

Mindfulness meditation reduces pain by separating it from the self

For centuries, people have been using mindfulness meditation to try to relieve their pain, but neuroscientists have only recently been able to test if and how this actually works. In the latest of these efforts, researchers ...

Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

SARS-CoV-2 infection could cause alterations in pain perception

Physicians from the Geneva University Hospitals (HUG) have observed a surprising phenomenon during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic: Some patients with cancer-related pain have experiences a significant decrease or ...

Psychology & Psychiatry

Mindfulness meditation may decrease impact of migraine

Migraine is a neurological disease that can be severely debilitating and is the second leading cause of disability worldwide. Unfortunately, many patients with migraine discontinue medications due to ineffectiveness or side ...

Neuroscience

Scientists shed light on how brains turn pain up or down

Pain perception is essential for survival, but how much something hurts can sometimes be amplified or suppressed: for example, soldiers who sustain an injury in battle often recall not feeling anything at the time.

Psychology & Psychiatry

The new 'runner's high'? MJ users often mix weed, workouts

Eight out of 10 marijuana users in states where cannabis is legal say they partake in the drug shortly before or after exercise, and most report that it motivates them to work out, helps them enjoy exercise more and improves ...

Health

Unpacking pain: what causes it and why it's hard to measure

Pain is difficult to measure. Unlike using a thermometer to measure body temperature, a blood test to measure blood glucose, or a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan to detect a tumour, there are no instruments or tests ...

Neuroscience

Mental imagery manages pain independent of opioid system

Mentally reframing pain as a pleasant experience is an effective regulation strategy that acts independently of the opioid system, finds new human research published in JNeurosci. The study supports clinical use of mental ...

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