Look At Your Body To Reduce Pain

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Look At Your Body To Reduce Pain

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/216167.php

Simply looking at your body reduces pain, according to new research by

scientists from UCL (University College London) and the University of

Milano-Bicocca, Italy.

Published in the journal Psychological Science, the research shows that viewing

your hand reduces the pain experienced when a hot object touches the skin.

Furthermore, the level of pain depends on how large the hand looked - the larger

the hand the greater the effect of pain reduction.

Flavia Mancini, the first author of the study, said " The image that the brain

forms of our own body has a strong effect on the experienced level of pain.

Moreover, the way the body is represented influences the level of pain

experienced. "

During the experiment, 18 participants had a heat probe placed on their left

hand. The probe temperature was gradually increased, and participants stopped

the heat by pressing a foot pedal as soon as they began to feel pain. The

scientists used a set of mirrors to manipulate what the participants saw during

the experiment. Participants always looked towards their left hand, but they

either saw their own hand, or a wooden object appearing at the hand's location.

The team found that simply viewing the hand reduced pain levels: the pain

threshold was about 3°C higher when looking at the hand, compared to when

looking at another object.

Next, the team used concave and convex mirrors to show the hand as either

enlarged or reduced in size. When the hand was seen as enlarged, participants

tolerated even greater levels of heat from the probe before reporting pain. When

the hand was seen as smaller than its true size, participants reported pain at

lower temperatures than when viewing the hand at its normal size.

This suggests that the experience of pain arises in parts of the brain that

represent the size of the body. The scientists' 'visual trick' may have

influenced the brain's spatial maps of the skin. The results suggest that the

processing of pain is closely linked to these brain maps of the skin.

Professor Haggard said: " Many psychological therapies for pain focus on

the painful stimulus, for example by changing expectations, or by teaching

distraction techniques. However, thinking beyond the stimulus that causes pain,

to the body itself, may have novel therapeutic implications. For example, when a

child goes to the doctor for a blood test, we tell them it will hurt less if

they don't look at the needle. Our results suggest that they should look at

their arm, but they should try to avoid seeing the needle, if that is possible! "

Notes

1. 'Visual distortion of body size modulates pain perception' will shortly be

published in Psychological Science.

2. The researchers include Flavia Mancini, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan &

Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, UCL; R. Longo, Birkbeck, University

of London; Marjolein P.M. Kammers, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, UCL; and

Haggard, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, UCL

Source: UCL (University College London)