The extensive recent research utilizing neuroimaging techniques to study pain in healthy subjects has many clinical implications for pain diagnosis and treatment. For the sake of brevity, this response will focus on fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imagining), a method that surveys changes in blood flow assumed to be reflecting alterations in neural activity and maps them to an anatomical representation of the patient’s brain (Borsook, Burstein et al. 2004). The culmination of several fMRI studies in healthy subjects has elucidated specific regions and networks of the central nervous system (CNS) that may be integral to pain processing in humans and may serve as “biomarkers” to help clinicians diagnose a patient’s pain condition (Wartolowska
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Furthermore, this method can assist physicians in determining the pharmacological need of their patients based on their brain activation patterns, as well as elucidate an analgesic drug’s mechanism of action and studying a drug’s pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamics profiles (Wartolowska and Tracey 2009). In line with this, a study published in 2007 demonstrated differences in brain activity if a drug was acting as an anti-hyperalgesic versus analgesic agent (Maihöfner, Ringler et al. 2007). Healthy volunteers treated with cyclooxygenase (COX) inhibitors were subjected to mechanical noxious stimuli upon and distant to a previously irradiated area. Through fMRI, the authors detected differences in neuronal activity in the parietal association cortex, secondary somatosensory cortex, and interior frontal gyrus of the brain(Maihöfner, Ringler et al. 2007). Advances such as these can assist physicians in treating the allodynia and hyperalgesia common in neuropathic pain conditions, symptoms that are thus far proving difficult to alleviate. Moreover, a clinician can use this information to assess the efficacy of a course of treatment more reliably, perhaps, than by patient interview
Furthermore, this method can assist physicians in determining the pharmacological need of their patients based on their brain activation patterns, as well as elucidate an analgesic drug’s mechanism of action and studying a drug’s pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamics profiles (Wartolowska and Tracey 2009). In line with this, a study published in 2007 demonstrated differences in brain activity if a drug was acting as an anti-hyperalgesic versus analgesic agent (Maihöfner, Ringler et al. 2007). Healthy volunteers treated with cyclooxygenase (COX) inhibitors were subjected to mechanical noxious stimuli upon and distant to a previously irradiated area. Through fMRI, the authors detected differences in neuronal activity in the parietal association cortex, secondary somatosensory cortex, and interior frontal gyrus of the brain(Maihöfner, Ringler et al. 2007). Advances such as these can assist physicians in treating the allodynia and hyperalgesia common in neuropathic pain conditions, symptoms that are thus far proving difficult to alleviate. Moreover, a clinician can use this information to assess the efficacy of a course of treatment more reliably, perhaps, than by patient interview