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The Understanding psychological and physiological
changes in the brain caused by pain
oPsyfchPoaloingy
By Emily Roush-Bobolz, staff writer
Illustrations by Michael Bishop, HFA staff & community member
I sit at the edge of the worn-out recliner in and one in 10 reported experiencing pain lasting a year or
my living room, my head in my hands, more. That could easily include bleeding disorders patients.
wondering what I’m going to do. How did
it ever get this bad and how will it ever get “For someone experiencing physical pain, they have two things
better? go on. There are physiological and psychological effects,” said
Dr. Kim Mauer, Medical Director at Oregon Science and Health
It started with just a few aches and pains, but I thought I was University’s Comprehensive Pain Center and clinical
too young to worry and didn’t think about it getting associate professor. “Physiologically their body is getting to a
worse. The pain was just a minor side effect of my point where they’re living in a chronic inflammatory stage at
chronic condition. It would probably go away. But
here I sit, years later, and the pain is worse, and now, a cellular and tissue level, which leads to receptor
more than I can handle. I don’t even want to try changes.”
getting up to get my bottle of pills in the other
room. I know the raging discomfort will hit me Besides the physiological effects, pain has a
again when I get up out of this chair. psychological effect. But Mauer says the
psychological effects tend to come later.
That scenario might be familiar to sufferers of
chronic illness. An inherited or acquired disease “As pain lingers and they start to realize it may
or an injury can provoke the body to respond with not be going away, you start to see depression and
what starts as acute pain but may lead to chronic anxiety,” said Mauer.
pain.
At that stage, when acute pain transitions to
In a study released by the Centers for Disease the chronic, inflammatory stage, the body’s
Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics, neurotransmitters begin to change, the brain
one in four U.S. adults experienced pain lasting an entire day experiences a decrease in serotonin, and fear-based
behaviors such as anxiety set in.
“Some people do OK and can cope with the pain. They decide
they’ll be OK and modify their life,” said Mauer. “But I see
Fall 2018 | Dateline Federation 11
