Scientists discover way to “turn off” pai

Altering the structure of patients' brains, can make them more resistant to pain say scientists.

New research has raised the possibility of creating more effective treatments for people who suffered from chronic pain, which could be as simple as encouraging them to take more exercise.

Scientists have discovered for the first time that people left in agony by arthritis developed more receptors in the brain that responded to opiate pain relief.

Having extra receptors made the body resistant to pain – both by using our bodies' natural painkillers, endorphins, and through prescribed opiates such as morphine.

According to the researchers if we can find out how the body increased the number of opiate receptors, it would be possible to improve pain relief treatments.

Nearly half of the UK population is said to have suffered from chronic long-term pain – lasting six months or more - and one in five consultations with GPs were for this complaint.

However, some people seemed to cope better with long-term severe pain, which led scientists to investigate which coping mechanisms were involved.

Researchers from the University of Manchester team found that the more opiate receptors an individual had, the better they were able to resist pain.

In their research doctors used positron emission tomography imaging on 17 patients with arthritis and nine healthy controls to show the spread of the opioid receptors.

This suggested the increase in opiate receptors in the brain was an adaptive response to chronic pain, which allowed people to deal with it more easily.

Dr Christopher Brown and his colleagues at Manchester University applied heat to the skin of patients using a laser simulator to show that the more opiate receptors there were in the brain, the higher the ability to withstand the pain.

Dr Brown said, ''As far as we are aware, this is the first time that these changes have been associated with increased resilience to pain and shown to be adaptive.

Although the mechanisms of these adaptive changes are unknown, if we can understand how we can enhance them, we may find ways of naturally increasing resilience to pain without the side effects associated with many pain killing drugs,'' The Scotsman reported.