System and method for detecting pain and its components using magnetic resonance

摘要

A system and method identifies different components of the pain experience (nociceptive (tissue damage), neuropathic (nerve damage) and psychological) and their relative contributions by the use of magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) to measure absolute and relative concentrations of metabolites in specific brain regions in the central nervous system or brain. The system and method can be used as a diagnostic tool for the assessment of the relative contribution of different aspects of the pain experience as well as monitoring of response to interventions directed at modifying these components.

主权项

1. An apparatus for detecting whether a subject is experiencing any of three individual pain components of nociceptive pain, neuropathic pain, or psychological pain, comprising:
a magnetic resonance spectrometer configured for obtaining spectroscopic data of the brain of a subject experiencing pain; a memory device configured for storing reference spectroscopic data having characteristic values which correlate with and identify the three different pain components; and a comparator configured to compare the spectroscopic data obtained with the reference spectroscopic data to detect whether the subject is experiencing any of the three individual pain components (1) wherein an increase of glucose and GABA in the frontal cortex, or a decrease in N-acetylaspartate (NAA), or an increase in choline, indicates nociceptive pain, (2) wherein a decrease of glucose and GABA in the frontal cortex indicate neuropathic pain, and (3) a small variation of glucose or GABA in the frontal cortex indicates psychological pain.