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It was furthermore demonstrated, using quantitative EEG analyses, that this dysfunctional pattern results in an increased and shifted mode of cortical processing, providing thus a non-invasive neural marker of chronic pain. These bursts could be directly measured using single unit recordings in the thalamus of patients with neurogenic pain –.
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This pattern originates in the presence, due to thalamic deafferentation, of low threshold calcium spikes (LTS) with a mean interburst discharge rate of 4 Hz at the limit between the delta and theta ranges. According to this approach there is a relationship between neurogenic pain and thalamocortical dysfunctional rhythmic activity. Ĭonsiderable information on the central neural mechanisms of chronic severe neurogenic (or neuropathic) pain has been obtained from studies on specific thalamocortical patterns –. While there is growing knowledge on the peripheral and spinal neuronal mechanism of pain chronification processes there is only limited understanding of central nervous changes in chronic pain. Accordingly there are many interdisciplinary efforts to investigate the genesis and maintenance of chronic pain. The life time prevalence for chronic back pain in Germany is estimated to be 24% for men and 30% for women. The largest subgroup of chronic pain conditions is lower back pain which is often considered as the one condition causing the largest financial damage to the economy in terms of treatment and work days lost. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Ĭompeting interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.Ĭhronic pain is one of the most frequent chronic diseases. The work of Stefan Schmidt and Thilo Hinterberger was sponsored by the Brain Mind and Healing Program of the Samueli Institute, Alexandria, VA, USA. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.įunding: This study was funded by the research council of the University Medical Center Freiburg, Germany and by the Foundation of the Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW), Germany. Received: JAccepted: JanuPublished: March 14, 2012Ĭopyright: © 2012 Schmidt et al. PLoS ONE 7(3):Įditor: Celia Oreja-Guevara, University Hospital La Paz, Spain (2012) Pain Ratings, Psychological Functioning and Quantitative EEG in a Controlled Study of Chronic Back Pain Patients. Citation: Schmidt S, Naranjo JR, Brenneisen C, Gundlach J, Schultz C, Kaube H, et al.