When you experience pain, the part of your brain called the lateral occipital complex (LOC) takes over your ability to concentrate and accurately recognize images, according to the July 5issue of Neuron.
Researchers at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, in Germany, asked volunteers to perform a cognitive task distinguishing images, plus a memory task recalling images. While performing those tasks, the researchers zapped the volunteers' hands with a laser beam to induce varying levels of pain.
A
brain scan of the volunteers' brain function during the tasks identified the LOC as the part of the brain that participates in both working memory activities and pain. It is also known to be a center for processing images.
Further research show that a second brain area called the rostral anterior cortex, was responsible for processing pain and it, too, was stimulated during the tests. The researchers theorize that this area of the brain may interfere with the LOC when people are in pain.
Brain scans can not only assist with research like this, but also it can reveal brain tumors, strokes and even multiple sclerosis as well as bleeding in the brain, tumors of the pituitary gland and other brain masses from as small as 5 millimeters.
The Brain Scan ProcedureYour physician will send you to an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) center for a brain scan. At the center, you will be taken to a room where you will be asked to lie down on a table, the table will then move into the MRI machine where pictures will be taken. The technician will ask you to hold your breath so that you don't move. The entire process is brief and takes only a few short minutes with absolutely no exposure of radiation.
In most cases your physician will have the results of your brain scan the same day that it is taken. If you have a pacemaker, insulin pump, aneurysm clips, vascular coils and filters, heart valves, ear implants or surgical staples and wires you should not have an MRI. If you have any of these implants or if you are pregnant, you should tell the technician before the procedure.
