![]() ![]() None of the participants had a history of medical or psychiatric illness, nor of drug addiction or dependence. The questionnaires measure pain and emotion in a standardized way, so that ratings can be compared over time. The volunteers answered questions from two standardized questionnaires repeatedly both in a control (no pain) state and when their jaw muscles were being injected with harmless salt water in order to cause pain. The researchers also scanned each volunteer’s brain using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in order to create a precise map of the brain’s structure, and combined that with their PET scans to find the exact areas of dopamine activity. The drug binds to the same receptors that dopamine does, so the more of it that could be seen in a specific brain area, the less dopamine was present and vice versa. To do this, they used the drug raclopride, to which had been attached a short-lived radioactive form of carbon. The study used positron emission tomography, or PET, scanning that allowed the researchers to calculate the level of dopamine activity by measuring the percentage of dopamine receptors on the surface of brain cells that were active. The authors concluded that in some areas of the basal ganglia, dopamine was involved in the assessment of pain itself, while in the ventral area, or nucleus accumbens, it was related to the emotional experience of pain. Similarly, dopamine release in two other areas of the basal ganglia” the putamen and caudate nucleus” was strongly correlated with the rating of how intense and unpleasant the pain itself was on a scale of 0 to 100. ![]() That effect persisted even after the researchers controlled for the negative emotional effects caused by the actual research setup, which included a needle inserted into a large jaw muscle, and the expectation of pain and repeated questioning. For example, the more a person rated the pain as causing emotional distress and fear, the more dopamine was released in the area known as the nucleus accumbens” the same region implicated in drug addiction. The study, which involved 25 healthy men and women, showed that dopamine was active in areas of the brain region known as the basal ganglia, the same region where it has been observed to respond to positive stimuli, such as food or sex.īut when the researchers induced pain in the volunteers’ jaw muscle, and asked them to rate different aspects of how they were feeling, differences emerged in specific sub-areas of the basal ganglia. ” It appears to act as a mechanism that responds to the salience of a stimuli” the importance of it to the individual” and makes it relevant for them to respond to.” ” It appears from our study that dopamine acts as an interface between stress, pain and emotions, or between physical and emotional events, and that it’s activated with both positive and negative stimuli,” says senior author Jon-Kar Zubieta, M.D., Ph.D., professor of psychiatry and radiology at the U-M Medical School and a member of the U-M Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience Institute and U-M Depression Center. And, it gives further evidence that vulnerability to drug addiction is a very individual phenomenon” and one that can’t be predicted by current knowledge of genetics and physiology. It may also yield clues to why some, but not other chronic pain patients may be prone to developing addictions to certain pain medications. The finding, published in the October 18 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, may help explain why people are more likely to acquire a drug addiction during times of intense stress in their lives. It’s the first time that dopamine has been linked to pain response in humans. Using sophisticated brain-scanning and a carefully controlled way of inducing muscle pain, the researchers show that the brain’s dopamine system is highly active while someone experiences pain” and that this response varies between individuals in a way that relates directly to how the pain makes them feel. Now, a new study from the University of Michigan adds a new twist to dopamine’s fun-loving reputation: pain. More recently, research has shown that certain drugs like cocaine and heroin amplify this effect” an action that may lie at the heart of drug addiction. ANN ARBOR, MI-For years, the brain chemical dopamine has been thought of as the brain’s ” pleasure chemical,” sending signals between brain cells in a way that rewards a person or animal for one activity or another. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |