Faulty brain wiring may link opioid addiction, chronic pain – By Judy Packer-Tursman (UPI) / July 11, 2022
(UPI) — While scientists have long noted a complex connection between a person’s addiction to opiates, or “opioid use disorder,” and chronic pain, the brain mechanisms linking the two have been poorly understood.
Chronic pain may lead to the misuse of opiates, and people with chronic pain have a harder time quitting these addictive medications than people with opioid use disorder without such pain.
So, scientists say, it’s critical to determine how chronic pain and opioid use disorder relate to create better treatments.
Now comes what’s being called a “first-of-its-kind study” by researchers at Ohio State University and the University of Michigan Medical School looking into one potential mechanism called “central sensitization” — described as abnormal pain processing in the brain and spinal cord.
