Chronic Back Pain May Shrink the Brain
Whoa…what is this! When your done reading this call me for a session and we’ll work on it together.
If you’re one of the millions of people with chronic back pain, scientists say your brain may age up to 20 times faster than normal.
In the first study of its kind, researchers from Northwestern University have found that chronic back pain actually shrinks the brain by as much as 11%. Specifically, it shrinks the gray matter, which makes up the part of the brain responsible for memory and information processing.
It is well documented that chronic back pain negatively impacts quality of life and increases anxiety and depression, but it has been assumed that any brain changes revert to a normal state after the pain stops, researcher A. Vania Apkarian writes in the Nov. 23, 2004 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.
Here’s the link for the entire article.