Investigating Pain Processing in the Brain, Brainstem, and Spinal Cord with fMRI

描述(由申请人提供)：慢性疼痛综合征在美国仍然是一个普遍存在的问题。慢性疼痛造成许多痛苦，并给医疗保健系统带来巨大的经济负担。最近脑成像技术的进步增加了我们对大脑在慢性疼痛持续中的作用的理解。这些研究开始破译慢性疼痛状态背后的神经基础。使用功能磁共振成像(FMRI)，我们的团队已经显示出慢性疼痛状态下大脑活动的明显时间和空间障碍，例如慢性下腰痛。拟议项目的主要目标是在我们之前的fMRI疼痛研究的基础上扩展，并研究整个神经轴的疼痛处理。这项拟议的研究旨在利用功能磁共振成像进一步表征和了解大脑水平上与疼痛相关的神经活动， 健康受试者和慢性颈痛患者的脑干和脊髓。总体而言，这些信息将增加我们对疼痛处理的理解，并进一步表征慢性颈部疼痛的神经基础。具体地说，我们的团队打算在未来利用这些结果来适当地设计研究，使用功能磁共振来测量治疗引起的疼痛相关脑、脑干和脊髓活动的变化。 公共卫生相关性：医学成像的新进展使测量与慢性疼痛相关的大脑活动成为可能。除了大脑，我们的目标是使用功能磁共振成像来研究健康受试者和慢性颈痛患者脑干和脊髓的疼痛处理。从这项研究中获得的信息将增加我们对慢性疼痛是如何在神经系统中编码的理解，并有助于开发更有效的治疗策略。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Chronic pain syndromes remain a widespread problem in the United States. Chronic pain causes much suffering and places a large economic burden on the health care system. Recent advancements in brain imaging techniques are increasing our understanding of the role of the brain in the perpetuation of chronic pain. These studies are beginning to decode the neural substrates underlying chronic pain states. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), our group has demonstrated distinct temporal and spatial disturbances in brain activity in chronic pain states such as chronic low back pain. The principal goal of the proposed project is to expand on our previous fMRI pain studies and investigate pain processing along the entire neuraxis. The proposed research aims to utilize fMRI to further characterize and understand pain-related neural activity at the level of the brain, brainstem, and spinal cord in both healthy subjects and chronic neck pain patients. Overall, this information will increase our understanding of pain processing and further characterize the neural substrates underlying chronic neck pain. Specifically, our team intends to use these results in the future to properly design studies using fMRI to measure treatment-induced changes in pain-related brain, brainstem, and spinal cord activity. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: New advances in medical imaging have allowed for the measurement of brain activity related to chronic pain. In addition to the brain, we aim to use functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate pain processing in the brainstem and spinal cord in healthy subjects and chronic neck pain patients. The information gained from this study will increase our understanding of how chronic pain is encoded in the nervous system and assist in developing more effective treatment strategies.