Summary: New analysis reveals how the brain combines problems expectations with real problems power, offering insights into the brain’s pain integration process. Using mri, scientists found that while all mind networks store discomfort information, simply higher-level networks combine pain expectations and stimuli into a coherent experience.
By better understanding how pain signs are processed across the head, this study roads the fields of science to open up new avenues for treating severe pain. The outcomes might lead to more efficient problems management strategies.
Important Information:
- In higher-level systems, the mental combines discomfort expectations with real stimuli.
- Lower and higher-level mental systems both preserve problems knowledge, but only the former incorporate it.
- This research advances our understanding of how anguish is processed, which may lead to the development of novel pain treatments.
Origin: Institute for Basic Science
A study led by Associate Director of the Institute for Basic Science ( IBS ), Associate Director WOO Choong-Wan of the Center for Neuroscience Imaging Research ( CNIR ), and Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering Sungkyunkwan University, Michael YOO Seng Bum, has revealed fresh insights into how the brain processes and integrates pain information.
Beyond identifying the brain regions that react to anguish, their research exposes the mechanisms that govern the brain’s integration of pain-related information. They formalized how the brain combines pain expectations with the actual intensity of painful stimuli using functional magnetic resonance imaging ( fMRI ).
Pain is a difficult experience that is influenced by both the individual’s expectations and the power of a terrible stimulus. For example, the problems one expects to feel you change the perception of the actual discomfort experienced.
This new research addresses the issue of how these various factors come together to create a unified sensation of pain, in contrast to previous research that has identified which brain regions handle these distinct factors that contribute to our problems experience.
KIM Jungwoo, the primary author of the study, stated,” It’s not just about knowing which parts of the brain are essential, unfortunately, understanding how discomfort arises is key to figuring out how to remove unwanted pain”.
The researchers modified the participants ‘ expectations about the level of pain they may experience by manipulating their expectations while using fMRI to track brain activity in them when they were exposed to varying degrees of pain impulses.
They divided the process into two stages: preservation ( how the brain keeps information about pain expectations and stimulus intensity ) and integration ( how these components combine to create a coherent pain experience ).
They predicted that lower-level mind networks would preserving information without integrating it, and higher-level brain networks would maintain and incorporate both as they examined these processes across various levels of the brain’s cerebral hierarchy*.
* Cortical Hierarchy: The brain processes information in a stepwise manner, with lower-level networks ( like the sensory and motor networks ) handling basic sensory input, and higher-level networks ( such as the limbic system and default mode network ) integrating more complex information. This study analyzed this model to better understand how the brain processes and integrates problems information at various levels.
Contrary to the experts ‘ first thesis, the results showed that all networks, regardless of stage, preserved both types of information—pain expectations and signal strength. Only higher-level networks were able to integrate this information by simply combining the preserved stimulus and expectation information.
This suggests that while the entire brain processes pain information, only specific areas are accountable for integrating various pain-related signals into the experience of pain.
This study demonstrates a significant collaboration between two neuroscientific disciplines. Dr. Yoo, an expert in decision-making and electrophysiology, and Dr. Woo, a pain researcher with a focus on fMRI, combined their expertise to study how pain information is processed throughout the entire brain.
Their creative approach illuminates the mechanisms by which the brain processes pain, providing valuable insights that could lead to novel ways of treating chronic pain.
The co-lead author, Michael YOO Seng Bum, stated,” It was a meaningful collaborative study that combined the strengths of each principal investigator to advance beyond merely reporting the activation of specific regions, allowing us to investigate the principles of how information is integrated across the brain.”
Another co-lead author, WOO Choong-Wan, described the study as” an innovative study using geometric information encoded in brain activation patterns to reveal the integration mechanism of different types of pain information,” adding that” this discovery would not have been possible without a collaboration.”
About this news from neuroscience and pain
Author: William Suh
Source: Institute for Basic Science
Contact: William Suh – Institute for Basic Science
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: Open access.
KIM Jungwoo and colleagues'” A Computational Mechanism of Brain Cue-Stimulus Integration for Pain.” Science Advances
Abstract
A Computational Mechanism of Brain Cue-Stimulus Integration for Pain
The brain incorporates data from noxious inputs and predetermined cues to create the pain experience. Although previous studies have identified neural encodings for individual pain components, how they are integrated remain a mystery.
We examined temporal functional magnetic resonance imaging activities within the state space, where axes represent individual voxel activities, using a cue-induced pain task.
We demonstrated that overall brain networks retain both cue and stimulus information in their respective subspaces within the state space by analyzing the features of these activities at the large-scale network level.
However, only higher-order brain networks, including limbic and default mode networks, could reconstruct the pattern of participants ‘ reported pain by linear summation of subspace activities, providing evidence for the integration of cue and stimulus information.
These findings provide insight into how the brain functions to process pain components and explain how they are integrated into our way of thinking about pain.
