Retraining the Brain to Treat Chronic Back Pain

Retraining the Brain to Treat Chronic Back Pain
Research is suggesting that it is possible to reduce back pain by retraining the brain to not react as intensely to certain kinds of back pain, depending on the cause. Shutterstock
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More than 25 million people in the U.S. live with chronic pain. This is pain that lasts for more than three months. The most common type of chronic pain is chronic back pain.

Often, no physical cause for this pain can be found. In these cases, it may stem from brain changes that persist after an injury healed. These brain changes provide a warning for you to restrict your movement and let the body recover. But in some cases, they can cause the pain to persist long after the damage has healed.

National Institutes of Health
National Institutes of Health
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A part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, NIH is the largest biomedical research agency in the world.
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