Progress in the treatment of chronic, intractable pain has been limited by the lack of reliable, quantifiable measures of pain severity. Many types of chronic pain are exacerbated by movement. Capitalizing on the observation that mental motor imagery engages many of the same sensori-motor processes engaged by real movement, we have demonstrated in two preliminary investigations that performance on tasks that involve imagined movements is altered in a specific and reproducible fashion by chronic pain. Based on current accounts of the relationship between real and imagined movements as well as our studies to date, we argue that simulated action provides a measure of pain that is quantifiable, reproducible and responsive to therapeutic interventions. As the proposed tasks provide measures of performance (e.g., reaction times and accuracy) that reflect the integrity of the underlying sensori-motor processing, these tasks are expected to provide measures of pain severity that more directly reflect functional status than multiply-determined global measures of pain severity. Finally, as mental motor imagery tasks require minimal language capacity or abstract reasoning, we propose to investigate the use of these measures in subjects with cognitive impairment.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
1R01NS046049-01A1
Application #
6731883
Study Section
Biobehavioral and Behavioral Processes 3 (BBBP)
Program Officer
Porter, Linda L
Project Start
2004-04-01
Project End
2008-01-31
Budget Start
2004-04-01
Budget End
2005-01-31
Support Year
1
Fiscal Year
2004
Total Cost
$256,572
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Pennsylvania
Department
Neurology
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
042250712
City
Philadelphia
State
PA
Country
United States
Zip Code
19104
Coslett, H Branch; Medina, Jared; Kliot, Dasha et al. (2010) Mental motor imagery indexes pain: the hand laterality task. Eur J Pain 14:1007-13
Coslett, H Branch; Medina, Jared; Kliot, Dasha et al. (2010) Mental motor imagery and chronic pain: the foot laterality task. J Int Neuropsychol Soc 16:603-12