Neuroplastic Pain Demo

In this video, Dr. Paul Hansma and student Dahyana Arroyo from the Hansma Research Lab explore exactly how neuroplastic pain originates. Learning the difference between chronic pain versus structural pain is crucial in the recovery process of chronic pain. As this difference is learned, you will come to understand why exactly it is that your body continues to feel pain despite there not being any signal from the body. The reason for this is due to sensitization. This causes the pain to evolve from a bodily signal to the brain signaling a false sense of pain.

Once the difference between the two is discovered as well as sensitization’s role, the next step would be to decrease the high sensitization levels that continue to fuel chronic pain. There are many techniques that are effective in treating chronic pain. As seen in the pain demonstration, such methods include therapy (whether physical or cognitive), pain education, mindfulness practices, or thermal biofeedback training. These techniques work best when they are combined into what is known as the Multimodal approach.

We would like to thank Zongren Zhang for his help with our lab's electronic devices, such as this one. We are grateful to Dr. Howard Schubiner for suggesting that we build a desktop demo and to Ericka Dickson, LCSW, for suggestions on how to make it useful for her psychotherapy patients with chronic pain.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To find more information on chronic pain, feel free to visit our website: https://hansmalab.physics.ucsb.edu/

Contact information for any future inquiries:
[email protected]