The Brain-Training Game That Reduces Your Pain

A little while ago, we wrote about How Nature Provides Us With A Surprisingly Powerful Painkiller—literally, that viewing nature scenes (even if just on video) alleviates physical pain—not just in self-reported subjective assessments, but also by a reduction of the neural activity that signals pain (unlike placebo, which changes our response to pain when the signal arrives).

That means, of course, that virtual reality can be a potential painkilling technology, if used to view nature scenes.

Of course, a top-tier option in this regard is to view actual nature scenes directly (i.e., spend time in green spaces), but we recognize that it’s not possible for everyone, especially not on-demand.

Beyond virtual reality

Today, we’re going to talk about a new synthesis of existing technologies, to reduce pain (in the case of the study: neuropathic pain) by adjusting one’s brain waves directly.

How? The software monitors brain activity via an electroencephalogram (EEG) headset, and responds in real-time with visual cues as the user learns to regulate abnormal brainwave patterns using biofeedback (specifically: neurofeedback), because…

❝The brainwaves of people with neuropathic pain show a distinct pattern: more slow theta waves, fewer alpha waves, and more fast, high beta waves.

We believe these changes interfere with how the thalamus talks to other parts of the brain, especially the sensory motor cortex, which registers pain.

I wondered, can we develop a treatment that directly targets and normalizes these abnormal waves?❞

~ Dr. Sylvia Gustin, lead researcher

And the answer to that question appears to be “yes”. We say “appears to be”, as so far there’s only been a small pilot study, but they’re recruiting for a larger study to launch soon.

The game itself is tablet-based and simple, and involves a simple visual challenge, on the tablet screen, in various possible ways, but generally taking the form of “this thing on the screen moves this way when your brain state is what it needs to be”, and then the user performs mental exercises (instructions are given) to make the thing on the screen move in the appropriate direction.

Doing this correctly yields—according to preliminary results at least (which admittedly are very preliminary)—pain relief comparable to opioids.

A small but significant portion of the readers may be thinking: wasn’t this the plot of a Star Trek episode in the 90s? And yes it was, but we promise that the headset-based move-the-object-with-neurofeedback opioid-like relief-giving game is not part of an alien takeover attempt this time.

You can read about the pilot study, here: The effect of an EEG neurofeedback intervention for corneal neuropathic pain

If, on the other hand, you don’t want to wait for this to become widely available, you can use other mental techniques to achieve a similar end, without technology; we did a main feature on this before; here it is: How To Dial Down Your Pain

Want to learn more?

We’ve written quite a bit about pain management, including:

• How To Stop Pain Spreading
• Managing Chronic Pain (Realistically!)
• Get The Right Help For Your Pain
• The 7 Approaches To Pain Management
• Science-Based Alternative Pain Relief (When Painkillers Aren’t Helping, These Things Might)

Take care!