A research group led by Associate Professor Masahiko Sumitani of the Department of Palliative Care, University of Tokyo Hospital, has created a virtual reality about the intractable pain "phantom limb pain" that should not exist in the limbs after amputation or neuropathy. ) It was clarified that the phantom limb pain can be relieved by repeating "the illusion of moving the phantom limb by one's own will" using the system.
The mysterious phenomenon that the limb and its sensation seem to exist (phantom limb) and the phantom limb hurts even though the sensation is lost after amputation of the limb or neuropathy is called "phantom limb pain". Call.Many patients who experience phantom limb pain are thought to have phantom limb pain because they cannot move the phantom limb in the brain, but conventional treatments cannot adequately relieve this pain.
In the research, we prepared a virtual reality system that shows the movement of the limbs (healthy limbs) without pain in real time on a display worn like goggles.When it was verified whether or not this would improve phantom limb pain, the patient could have a virtual experience of moving the phantom limb by his / her own will by moving the healthy limb while watching the image, and the phantom limb pain was experienced. It turned out to be relieved.
In this study, we not only verified that the onset mechanism of phantom limb pain is an abnormality of motor representation in the brain, but also developed a new brain science-based treatment method using virtual reality for phantom limb pain. It can be said that this is also an achievement.In the future, the people concerned are expecting that it will lead to the elucidation of the cause of pain in patients with neuropathic pain accompanied by motor paralysis such as post-spinal cord injury pain and the development of new treatment methods.
This result was announced in the "European Journal of Pain (online precedent)" on July 7, Japan time.
