Consequences of Action

[Harut]

A few days ago, a future doctor friend of mine, as a side note, mentioned that emotional pain and physical pain cause equal amount of damage to the brain...

 

Here is a thought... Why is it that you can jump in front of a stranger on the street and punch him (cause a physical pain) and get jailed and pay consequences as a result? In contrast, you can jump in front of a stranger on the street and curse, use profanity, publically humiliate the person, maybe calling names and pointing out their shortcomings (physical or otherwise) (cause a emotional pain) and walk away without paying any consequences for your action...

Similarly, if a stranger jumps in front of you on the street and causes emotional pain onto you, why can't you punch him back on self defense? After all you would not do him more that he has done to you...

Edited May 11, 2008 by Harut

[Ashot]

Har jan, qel portsenq... myus anqam mezi mek@ qrfi menqel self defense anenq, verchum lawyerov tenanq et vitchak@ kantsni te che!!!

[Azat]

because physical pain from a stranger hurts more then emotional pain from a stranger. Yet if its from a person know there definitely damages associated with the pain... much of the work law-suites are associated around emotional pain.

[MosJan]

Har jan, qel portsenq... myus anqam mezi mek@ qrfi menqel self defense anenq, verchum lawyerov tenanq et vitchak@ kantsni te che!!!

 

minch portsel@ mark Giragosi heraxosi hamar@ angir sovori - mek el tesar petq ga

[Sip]

Pain causes damage to the brain? WTF.

[Ani]

Emotional and physical pain are recognized (processed) by brain in a similar way…PET scans of a depressed person and a person suffering from physical pain show same action, same amount of cell apoptosis (damage)…

 

 

And it is now being researched that pain does damage the brain...not as noticeable as after a brain injury but it has long term effects on brain…

 

 

 

 

"February 9th, 2008

 

People with unrelenting pain don’t only suffer from the non-stop sensation of throbbing pain. They also have trouble sleeping, are often depressed, anxious and even have difficulty making simple decisions.

 

In a new study, investigators at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine have identified a clue that may explain how suffering long-term pain could trigger these other pain-related symptoms.

 

 

 

"Researchers found that in a healthy brain all the regions exist in a state of equilibrium. When one region is active, the others quiet down. But in people with chronic pain, a front region of the cortex mostly associated with emotion "never shuts up," said Dante Chialvo, lead author and associate research professor of physiology at the Feinberg School. "The areas that are affected fail to deactivate when they should."

 

They are stuck on full throttle, wearing out neurons and altering their connections to each other.

 

This is the first demonstration of brain disturbances in chronic pain patients not directly related to the sensation of pain. The study was published in the Feb. 6, 2008 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.

 

Chialvo and colleagues used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to scan the brains of people with chronic low back pain and a group of pain-free volunteers while both groups were tracking a moving bar on a computer screen.

 

The study shows pain sufferers performed the task well, but "at the expense of using their brain differently than the pain-free group," he said.

 

When certain parts of the cortex were activated in the pain-free group, some others were deactivated, maintaining a cooperative equilibrium between the regions. This equilibrium also is known as the resting state network of the brain."

 

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Chronic back pain, a condition afflicting many Americans, shrinks the brain by as much as 11 percent — equivalent to the amount of gray matter lost in 10 to 20 years of normal aging, a Northwestern University research study found.

 

Loss in brain density is related to pain duration, indicating that 1.3 cubic centimeters of gray matter (the part of the brain that processes information and memory) are lost for every year of chronic pain, said lead researcher A. Vania Apkarian, associate professor of physiology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a researcher at the Northwestern University Institute of Neuroscience.

 

The study, the first to examine brain changes in chronic pain conditions, was published in the Nov. 23 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.

 

About 6 percent of the American population is probably suffering from brain shrinkage from chronic back pain. On top of that there are people suffering from chronic stomach pain and other forms of chronic pain. So it is likely that more than 20 million Americans are suffering cognitive losses due to chronic pain.

 

At least 25 percent of Americans suffer from back pain; in one fourth of these individuals, back pain is chronic and unremitting.

 

Although chronic pain greatly diminishes quality of life and increases anxiety and depression, it previously had been assumed that the brain reverts to its normal state after chronic pain stops.

 

Apkarian and co-researchers used structural magnetic resonance imaging brain scan data and two automated analysis techniques to contrast brain images from 26 participants with chronic back pain with those from matched normal subjects.

 

All participants with chronic back pain had unrelenting pain for more than a year, primarily localized to the lumbosacral region, including buttocks and thighs, with or without pain radiating to the leg.

 

The participants were divided into neuropathic — exhibiting pain because of sciatic nerve damage — and non-neuropathic. Brain scans showing gray matter volume were compared.

 

In earlier research, Apkarian and colleagues found that back pain sustained for six months or longer is accompanied by abnormal brain chemistry, indicated by chemical changes in the area of the brain known to be important in making emotional assessments, including decision-making and for controlling social behavior. Based on these results, Apkarian’s laboratory group embarked on the brain atrophy study.

 

It is possible that some of the observed decreased gray matter shown in this study reflects tissue shrinkage without substantial neuronal loss, suggesting that proper treatment would reverse this portion of the decreased brain gray matter, Apkarian said.

 

The atrophy also may be attributable to more irreversible processes, such as neurodegeneration. Other research has shown that spinal cord neurons undergo apoptosis — cell death — in rats with neuropathic pain.

 

“Given that, by definition, chronic pain is a state of continuous persistent perception with associated negative affect and stress, one mechanistic explanation for the decreased gray matter is overuse atrophy caused by excitotoxic and inflammatory mechanisms,” Apkarian said.

 

The researchers hypothesize that atrophy of brain circuitry involved in pain perception may dictate the properties of the pain state, such that as atrophy of elements of the circuitry progresses, the pain condition becomes more irreversible and less responsive to therapy.

 

 

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/pt...908-000003.html

 

 

 

 

[Sip]

Wow ... who knew ... Jesus was right after all. Turn the other cheek for a little bit of physical pain but then emotionally torment the perpetrator for the rest of his life with toughts of going to Hell. That guy was a GENIUS!

[Ani]

The One-Two Punch of Major Depression

 

When people are diagnosed with major depression, they obviously have a depressed mood. But new research is showing that depression doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and the condition is also associated with many other chronic health problems, from diabetes to asthma to arthritis. Being depressed actually worsens the effects of other physical illnesses.

 

I don’t mean simply feeling down about a chronic physical problem. People with various medical problems often may feel discouraged about their condition, but they usually don’t become severely depressed. However, being affected by depression may be having a negative effect on other illnesses you may also be experiencing.

 

In fact, a recent study published in The Lancet backs up this compounding effect of depression by suggesting that chronic illnesses become even more disabling in people who were already depressed.

 

And the authors go on to suggest that the depression itself may be more disabling than common chronic conditions like angina, arthritis, asthma, and diabetes. Based on what this and other findings about the effects of depression on other illnesses, it makes sense for primary care doctors always to consider whether their patients are depressed when evaluating them for chronic conditions.

 

And, of course, patients should bring up to their doctor any symptoms of depression, such as persistent sadness, thoughts of life being worthless, changes in sleeping patterns, decreased appetite, and less interest in the things usually enjoyed.

 

If you are depressed, treatment won’t merely improve your mood. It might also help with other health problems, too.

 

 

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