People with fibromyalgia have persistent fatigue and pain in different areas of the body, as well as tenderness in the muscles, joints, or tendons. Although anyone can suffer from it, the truth is that those affected are mostly women .
Now, according to a new study by the Karolinska Institute (Stockholm), fibromyalgia, that chronic disease still of unknown cause and that mainly affects middle-aged people, would be linked to abnormal activity in the areas of the brain that process signals pain The work has been published in the journal Brain Connectivity .
For their study, the researchers compared the brain activity of 22 healthy women and 16 women with fibromyalgia with functional magnetic resonance imaging as they experienced different levels of pain from pressure applied to the thumb. The experiment continued with a total of 15 pain stimuli of 2.5 seconds each, at half-minute intervals.
When they analyzed the brain scans, the experts found differences in brain patterns between healthy participants and those with fibromyalgia. Thus, women with fibromyalgia had a “functional uncoupling” between areas of the brain that process pain signals as well as other areas , including those that control sensorimotor activity. According to the study, this reduction in brain connectivity affects the patient’s perception of pain, as participants with fibromyalgia had significantly increased sensitivity to pain compared to the control group.
