Neural plasticity

Pain has always been described as a symptom. However, recent advances in the understanding of neural mechanisms have demonstrated that unrelieved pain may lead to changes in the nervous system known as neural plasticity. Since these changes reflect a process that influences a physiologic response, pain, particularly chronic pain, may be considered a disease unto itself. 

The nice thing about the neural-plasticity hypothesis is that it seems to explain so much. In fact, it is a better explanation of the effects of psychotherapy than of drugs. If recovery from depression depends on learning new ways of thinking, then psychotherapy - and especially cognitive behavioural psychotherapy - ought to be effective, and indeed it is, as we shall see in Chapter 7. The... 

The problem with the neural-plasticity hypothesis is that it does not explain how all of these very different treatments -including drugs that are supposed to have biochemical effects that are directly opposite to each other - produce their hypothesized effects on neural networks. In seeming to explain so much, the neural-plasticity hypothesis (at least as it is used as an explanation of antidepressant treatment) may actually explain nothing at all. And if placebos produce changes in neural plasticity, why bother with antidepressant drugs ... 

Nestler, E. Molecular basis of neural plasticity underlying addiction. Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 2 119-128, 2001. 

Duman, R. S., Malberg, J. and Thome, J. Neural plasticity to stress and antidepressant treatment. Biol. Psych. 46 1181-1191,1999. 

Instructor in Anesthesia, Harvard Medical School Neural Plasticity Research Group, Department of Anesthesia and Critical Care Massachusetts General Hospital 149 13 th Street... 

Instructor in Anesthesia, Harvard Medical School Neural Plasticity Research Group,... 

Q. Ding, S. Vaynman, P. Souda, J. P. Whitelegge, and F. Gomez-Pinilla. Exercise Affects Energy Metabolism and Neural Plasticity-Related Proteins in the Hippocampus as Revealed by Proteomics Analysis. Eur. J. Neurosci., 24(2006) 1265-1276. 

Overview of Anxiety-Induced Signal Transduction and Neural Plasticity. . . 307... 

Neurobiology and Treatment of Anxiety Signal Transduction and Neural Plasticity 311... 

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