Chinese scientists decipher the sound to reduce the pain neural mechanism

Can the sound reduce pain? What if you can, what is the neural mechanism that exerts the analgesic effect? A few days ago, Professor Zhang Zhi, Department of Life Sciences and Medicine of the University of Science and Technology of China, Professor Liu Yuanyuan team of the National Institute of Health of the United States, and Associate Professor Tao Wenjuan of Anhui Medical University Published in the "Science" magazine, revealing the key factors and of the key factors and of the sound analgesics Neural mechanism.

As early as 1960, Science magazine published a paper: During dental surgery, music can regulate patients' emotions. Even noise, such as the sound of surgical drills, can also produce analgesic effects. However, for more than half a century, sounds can reduce the key factors of pain, as well as how sound affects our brain and reduce the pain of pain. It is unclear.

In this study, the researchers first played three different types of sounds to the claws, which were soothing music, uncoordinated notes, and white noise. It was found that when these three sounds were played at low intensity (about the level of whispering), they could effectively relieve the pain of mice, and there was no obvious analgesic effect when high -intensity playback.

Some research hypothesis believes that the analgesic effect of sound may be closely related to the treatment environment. Therefore, the researchers put mice in an environment with different strength background sounds, and found that the sound of about 5 dB higher than the environmental noise can effectively relieve the pain of mice. At this point, researchers have established a mouse model with sound analgesics.

"Surprisingly, for mice, the weak sound between sound and environmental noise is very important for the analgesic effect of sound, not the melody of sound." The first author of the paper, Chinese science science Dr. Zhou Wenjie, a special associate researcher at the Department of Life Science and Medicine of the University of Technology, said.

So, what is the neural mechanism of the analgesic effect?

The leather layer is the highest -level brain center of sound treatment, and the sound of the sound is detailed. The researchers used the virus as a neurotic trace agent to track the leather hearing layer output, and found that a large number of neurons in the hearing cortex were projected into the body sensation (responsible for receiving the sensory signal from the body, including pain), and found that it was found Low -intensity sounds can inhibit this projection.

"The research results show that low -intensity sounds can relieve the pain of the pain by inhibiting the nerve projection of the leather layer to the body, and then to relieve the pain." Zhou Wenjie said that this is the leather hill brain circuit of sound analgesic. However, in addition to sound intensity, the melody of sound needs to be further studied on human perception of human perception.

In response to this study, the "Science" magazine made a special review, stating that "the model of the foundation of a research mechanism has opened up a new direction for the research of analgesic for music/sound." (Guangming Daily)

- END -