Gray matter alteration associated with pain catastrophizing in patients 6 months after lumbar disk surgery: a voxel-based morphometry study

摘要

Introduction:Pain catastrophizing (PC), the increased attention to harmful aspects of pain (magnification), and the belief of low controllability (helplessness) has been shown to be important in the maintenance of pain. A growing research on structural alterations in chronic pain revealed an association between PC and brain areas that are involved in affective and cognitive pain processing. However, little is known about a differential effect of the components magnification and helplessness.