When our body experiences pain, many enormously complex exchanges of information occur within the brain.
Previous research has only shown how the intensity of pain can be directly related to specific oscillation patterns in brain activity. These oscillations are altered by the activation and deactivation of the ‘interneurons’ that connect different brain regions.
Inhibitory Interneurons prevent chemical messages from passing between these regions. It remains unclear how these interneurons affect the oscillation process.
Research led by Fernando Montani, Argentina, shows that inhibitory interneurons make up 20% of the brain’s circuitry required for pain processing.
Processing pain involves specific configurations of interneurons, each of which links specific pairs of regions or ‘nodes’ within the brain. Some of these neurons will be inhibitory, which is vital for the varying strengths of connections.
Since the brain is a very complex structure, it would be virtually impossible to create a biologically plausible model. All possible links and connections between specific pairs of nodes will need to be considered, and their relative strengths will need to be determined.
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Using ‘graph theory,’ which studies structures that are made up node sets influencing each other’s behaviors via links of variable strengths, the researchers overcame this issue.
The researchers estimated the signals produced by each region of a virtual brain in a given configuration and how far they diverge from realistic values with the help of a novel statistical approach.
Montani’s team built up a realistic graph by strengthening and weakening the influences of certain links in the brain. Their analysis revealed that the pain process involves a configuration where 20% of all interneurons are inhibitory to information transmission.
Source: Medindia
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