Brain Circuit May Turn Off Chronic Pain, Study Suggests

Researchers identified a tiny brain region called the caudal granular insular cortex (CGIC) that acts as a switch determining whether pain fades or becomes chronic. In animal experiments, silencing this pathway prevented chronic pain from forming and could even erase it after onset by interrupting signals to the somatosensory cortex and spinal cord. The findings suggest targeted brain-cell interventions or brain-machine interfaces as potential, opioid-sparing treatments, though applicability to humans remains to be studied.