Chronic pain is an important and growing problem in aging populations. A key challenge to treating chronic pain is the absence of effective, objective methods of assessment. This study, from a homogeneous group of chronic pain patients with failed back surgery syndrome, demonstrated that the functional interaction strength between the limbic striatum and neocortex were very tightly correlated with the patients’ pain scores. We believe this index may form the basis for an objective, non-invasive biomarker for chronic lower back pain, and may be generalizable to other types of chronic pain.
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