Evidence of abnormalities in the brain in stress-related illness continues to accumulate. A recent paper * compared MRI scans in 14 Fibromyalgia (FM) patients and 14 healthy people and found reduced gray matter in pain-processing areas in the brain in the FM group. The authors wondered whether this reduction in gray matter caused the chronic pain or whether it was a result of chronic pain.
Posts Tagged ‘physiology’
The Physiology of Stress Illness (3)
Friday, December 11th, 2009The Physiology of Stress Illness (2)
Friday, November 20th, 2009To review from yesterday’s post, studies have revealed that people with Fibromyalgia (FM) experience pain differently.* (Studies in other forms of Stress Illness are similar.) Here are some additional research results that support the idea of altered underlying physiology, presented with minimal jargon.
The Physiology of Stress Illness (1)
Thursday, November 19th, 2009Stress Illness consists of medically unexplained physical symptoms that improve in response to diagnosis and treatment of psychosocial stresses. Since these symptoms are not imaginary, they are undoubtedly associated with one or more underlying abnormalities in physiology. These are poorly understood but a recent article* reviews the latest research as it applies to fibromyalgia (FM) with likely relevance to many forms of Stress Illness.
