Review ArticleOpen Access

Brain imaging: a promising biomarker for pain

Volume 6 - Issue 3

**Riccardo Serra*, Noah Leviton Gorelick, Betty Tyler and Michael Guarnieri**

Author Information Open or Close
- Department of Neurosurgery and Hunterian Neurosurgical Research Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, USA
*Corresponding author: Riccardo Serra, Department of Neurosurgery and Hunterian Neurosurgical Research Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA

Received: June 28, 2018; Published: July 09, 2018

DOI: 10.26717/BJSTR.2018.06.001369

Full Text PDF

To view the Full Article Peer-reviewed Article PDF

Abstract

Clinicians and researchers have the problem of objectively assessing the intensity and characteristics of pain. Furthermore, the widespread use of Visual-Analogue scales during the past decade highlights the need for a reliable and quantitative biological marker of pain. Mono- and multidimensional measures of pain, based on the activity of one or more brain regions involved in the quantification of painful inputs, have become the focus of extensive research. The growing availability of non-invasive functional imaging has in fact fueled a revolution in the field: a novel multiparametric pain signature was recently introduced and tested in patients, and proven effective in evaluating the intensity of painful inputs, and the effects of analgesics on those stimuli.

Abbrevations: VAS: Visual-Analogue Scales; CBF: Cerebral Blood Flow; ACC: Anterior Cingulate Cortex; IC: Insular Cortex; PFC: Prefrontal Cortex; BOLD: Blood-Oxygen-Level-Dependent; ASL: Arterial Spin Labeling; PET: Positron-Emission Tomography; EEG: electroencephalogram; DOT: Diffuse Optical Tomography; MEG: Magnetic Encephalography; CB: Cerebellum; FUS: Fusiform; HY: Hypothalamus; IFJ: Inferior Frontal Junction; MTG: Middle Temporal Gyrus; OG: Occipital Gyrus; PAG: Periaqueductal Gray Matter, PCC: Posterior Cingulate Cortex; SMA: Supplementary Motor Area; SMG: Supramarginal Gyrus; SPL: Superior Parietal Lobule; TG: Temporal Gyrus