Can You Train Your Brain to Feel Less Chronic Knee Pain?
Researchers at Northeastern University are launching a study to determine if neurofeedback can help patients manage chronic knee pain. The technique allows patients to visualize and manipulate their own brainwaves to reduce pain sensations without medication.
Why it matters
If successful, this could provide a non-pharmacological alternative for the millions of Americans suffering from chronic osteoarthritis pain.
Using neurofeedback, patients can watch their pain brainwaves in real time and learn to manipulate them to reduce the agonizing sensations
You know you’re hurt because special nerve cells called nociceptors send chemical electric signals in just 150 milliseconds to the somatosensory cortex, right at the top of the skull – where the top button of a baseball cap would be. That lets you know consciously you just hit your toe on something, pain experts say.
It’s either, don’t do that again or something more serious has happened.
What should be an ache feels like torment, with pain signals reverberating throughout the brain, not just the somatosensory cortex, said David Sherman, an assistant professor at Northeastern University’s Bouvé College of Health Sciences.
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