I just read an interesting paper from Lorimer Moseley‘s group about how looking at your back in the mirror can reduce back pain. The paper describes a simple study where people with back pain were asked to make numerous repetitive provocative movements of the low back under two conditions: one group was able to see their… Continue Reading
Move better. Feel better.
Category Archives: illusions
Review of Moseley/Hodges Talk Part Three
This is part three of my review of the Lorimer Moseley and Paul Hodges conference on pain and motor control. You can read parts one and two here and here. This section will describe Lorimer’s discussion of the body maps and their connection to pain, motor control and immune responses. The brain’s map of the… Continue Reading
Review of Conference with Moseley and Hodges on Pain and Motor Control
This weekend I went to Portland, Oregon to attend a conference sponsored by the APTA Section on Women’s Health, featuring talks by Lorimer Moseley and Paul Hodges on the issues of chronic pain and motor control. It was a fantastic experience, and most of the time I was buzzing with geekcitement. Jealous you missed it?… Continue Reading
Wanting to be an Amputee (and More)
Well I just got back from a nice camping trip (that was far more comfortable than the last.) And tomorrow I am off for a week’s vacation (which will be even more comfortable.) So I don’t have much time for blogging, but I do have time to link to three interesting recent articles which show… Continue Reading
Great New Paper on Targeting the Brain for Treatment of Pain
I just read a new paper by Lorimer Moseley and Herta Flor called “Targeting Cortical Representations in the Treatment of Chronic Pain: A Review.” This is an excellent short review of what is known about the connection between chronic pain and changes to the brain, and how this information might be used by therapists to… Continue Reading
The Limits of Imagination
If you can dream it you can do it! Well, according to a recent study, maybe not so much, at least when your dream is to rehabilitate an arm weakened by stroke.
I have written several times on this blog about how imagery and visualization can be used to build coordination and physical skills. For example . . .… Continue Reading
More on Pain and Illusions
One of the main themes of this blog is that therapies attempting to treat chronic pain should target the brain for change, not just the body. Some recent studies based around sensory tricks or illusions provide further compelling evidence in support of this idea. 1. Big hand, small pain In the first study, researchers placed… Continue Reading
The Rubber Hand Illusion
Neuroscience is to some extent an exercise in reverse engineering the brain. Reverse engineering means trying to understand how a complex device works without knowledge of its design or access to the owner’s manual. One of the basic tools of reverse engineering is to disable one part of the machine and then see what effect… Continue Reading
The Thermal Grill Illusion
Body Map Error On this blog I frequently discuss the idea that pain can sometimes be caused by the brain’s faulty perception of the body as opposed to actual tissue damage to the body. Put another way, errors in the way the brain maps the body can cause threat which causes pain, even when there… Continue Reading