Researchers report progress in quest to create objective method
of detecting pain A method of analyzing brain structure using
advanced computer algorithms accurately predicted 76 percent of
the time whether a patient had lower back pain in a new study by
researchers from the Stanford University School of Medicine. The
study, which will be published online Dec. 17 in Cerebral
Cortex, reported that using these algorithms to read brain scans
may be an early step toward providing an objective method for
diagnosing chronic pain. "People have been looking for an
objective pain detector—a 'pain scanner'—for a long time," said
Sean Mackey, MD, PhD, chief of the Division of Pain Medicine and
professor of anesthesiology, pain and perioperative medicine,
and of neurosciences and neurology. "We're still a long way from
that, but this method may someday augment self-reporting as the
primary way of determining whether a patient is in chronic
pain." The need for a better way to objectively measure pain
instead of relying so