Chronic Back Pain found to Shrink the Brain.

[swestrup]

Here's something I would never have guessed. According to betterhumans a recent study shows that the brain actually shrinks by roughly 1 cc per year under the onslaught of persistent and chronic pain. No one knows yet if it does or does not involve the loss of neurons or if it is or is not reversible.

Comments

[thebabynancy.livejournal.com]

So my brain is shrinking...


:(

[swestrup]

If its any comfort they say that getting older does the same thing, so mine is shrinking too :-(

[ellenk.livejournal.com]

They didn't say if they'd taken into account all the medication people take to try to help relieve back pain. I wonder how they controlled for that? Just because something is linked doesn't mean it's caused by it, or, as we had to hear in EVERY psych class I took in college, "Correlation does not prove causation."

[swestrup]

True. One often has to look up the original papers to find such things out, and even then its not always clear.

[tjernobyl.livejournal.com]

Ah, if only if it were possible to localize that effect just to the pain centre...