Investigation of Chronic Pain Following Traumatic Brain Injury.

摘要

A better understanding of the nature of chronic pain after combat related TBI is of central importance in the treatment of warfighters who suffer from this condition. The broad objective of this work is to characterize the neural networks involved in post-traumatic pain using functional MRI both in the resting state and during activation with a moderately painful stimulus. The hypothesis is that the patterns of activation under both conditions are abnormal and similar to those in other chronic pain states such as migraine and fibromyalgia when controlled for co-morbid insomnia, depression and PTSD. The study groups to be compared for this work include patients with chronic migraine, fibromyalgia, post-traumatic pain post mTBI, asymptomatic individuals post mTBI, and normal controls. Resting state network characteristics will be determined by MRI at rest and contrasted to the pattern of activation during a visual attention task. Next, a calibrated degree of moderate pressure will be applied to the left thumb.