Pet scanning Helps Visualize Physiology of Pain Afflicted Areas

Pain is responsible for an enormous amount of suffering and socioeconomical cost in a man’s life. Much of its therapy has been empirical since there was no method to actually see what was happening in the pain afflicted areas. Magnus Peterson a pain physician has been working with positron emission tomography or PET, a diagnostic tool, along with a radioactive tracer for the signal receptor NK1. He has been able to visually image the physiological process in the inflamed areas like the tennis elbow. Upon injury or tissue damage it is found that there is an upregulation of the neuropeptide substance P and it receptor NK1. This upregulation is an interaction between the injured tissue, the immune cells and the peripheral nerves and helps the body heal. But in chronic pain areas the P-NK1 system lingers on and this was visualized through the research. The method is still expensive but newer development might make it more accessible for clinical treatments.