Training the Brain to Reduce Chronic Pain?

Researchers from Stanford University have found a means of training the brain to handle chronic pain. Upon viewing real-time fMRI scans of their own brains, specifically the rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC), the region involved in pain perception and regulation, patients saw how their brains behaved during pain. They deliberately induced increases or decreases in rACC. The corresponding changes in the perception of pain were seen on the fMRIs. Upon gaining voluntary control over the activation of the rACC, patients took control of their pain perception and decreased the severity of their chronic clinical pain. The research was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/ abstract/102/51/18626