Visual Inputs Reduce Pain, Mirror Therapy For CRPS

Visual inputs moderate pain messages coming in to the nervous system, according to recent reseach on health volunteers in the Journal of Neuroscience, quoted in Neurophilosophy science blog.

Volunteers reported and experienced less pain when stimulated with laser energy on their hand if they could see their other hand or a reflection of it in a mirror. This shows that visual inputs modulate pain inputs not just in pain patients but in all of us.

Mirror therapy, where patients "see" their affected hand by seeing a reflection of their other and normal hand in a mirror, is well established as a treatment for phantom limb pain and for CRPS or Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. Physiotherapists uses these techniques in the treatment of these chronic pain patients.

This research might lead to more ideas on how to treat more acute pain syndromes rather than just the well established chronic ones.