Articles: dorsolateral-prefrontal-cortex.
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Working memory impairments are common in chronic low back pain and are linked to increased pain severity. Reduced working memory may contribute to chronic pain by disrupting the ability to contextualize threat and modulate pain. These processes involve the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and its interaction with the periaqueductal gray. ⋯ This highlights cognitive-pain interactions and the potential of targeting working memory and this pathway for therapy. Perspective This article presents evidence that low working memory is associated with abnormalities in activations and connectivity in the pain modulation pathways in people with chronic low back pain. These changes predict chronic pain severity indicating a potential association between working memory, pain modulation pathways and chronic pain severity.
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Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is believed to be an effective treatment for chronic pain due to its association with cognitive and emotional factors. Nevertheless, there is a paucity of magnetoencephalography (MEG) investigations elucidating its underlying mechanisms. This study investigated the neurophysiological effects of CBT employing MEG and analytical techniques. ⋯ PERSPECTIVE: We conducted MEG scans on 30 patients with chronic pain before and after a CBT program, comparing results with 31 healthy individuals. There were CBT-related changes in the right IFG and DLPFC. These results highlight the importance of specific brain regions in pain reduction through CBT.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation of the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex for Phantom Limb Pain.
Phantom limb pain (PLP) is a prevalent and distressing occurrence in 60-80% of individuals who have undergone amputations. Recent research underscores the significance of maladaptive cortical plasticity in the genesis of PLP, emphasizing the importance of targeting cortical areas for therapeutic interventions. Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), a noninvasive tool for cortical stimulation, demonstrates effectiveness in treating various chronic pain conditions of neuropathic origin. Nevertheless, there exists a limited body of research investigating the application of rTMS as a therapeutic intervention specifically for managing PLP. Notably, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) plays a crucial role in central pain processing, suggesting its potential as a key therapeutic target in PLP treatment. There is a lack of adequate data regarding the effectiveness of DLPFC-targeting rTMS in alleviating the pain experienced by PLP patients. ⋯ A regimen of 10 sessions of real rTMS of the DLPFC was associated with significant pain relief in patients with PLP, and the effects were sustained for 2 months. Therefore, the present study shows that rTMS of the DLPFC has potential as an effective therapeutic intervention for sustained pain relief in PLP patients.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Motor Control Exercise Modulates the Neural Plasticity of the Default Mode Network in Patients with Chronic Low Back Pain.
Motor control exercise (MCE) effectively alleviates nonspecific chronic low back pain (CLBP), but the neural mechanisms underlying this phenomenon are poorly understood. ⋯ These findings demonstrate that MCE may alleviate CLBP symptoms in patients by modifying information transmission from the default mode network to the left frontoparietal network.
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Transcranial static magnetic stimulation (tSMS) is known to influence behavioral and neural activities. However, although the left and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) are associated with different cognitive functions, there remains a lack of knowledge on a difference in the effects of tSMS on cognitive performance and related brain activity between left and right DLPFC stimulations. To address this knowledge gap, we examined how differently tSMS over the left and right DLPFC altered working memory performance and electroencephalographic oscillatory responses using a 2-back task, in which subjects monitor a sequence of stimuli and decide whether a presented stimulus matches the stimulus presented two trials previously. ⋯ Our preliminary results revealed that while tSMS over the left and right DLPFC impaired working memory performance to a similar extent, the impacts of tSMS on brain oscillatory responses were different between the left and right DLPFC stimulations. Specifically, tSMS over the left DLPFC increased the event-related synchronization in beta band whereas tSMS over the right DLPFC did not show such an effect. These findings support evidence that the left and right DLPFC play different roles in working memory and suggest that the neural mechanism underlying the impairment of working memory by tSMS can be different between left and right DLPFC stimulations.