{"id":597413,"date":"2026-09-11T19:40:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T19:40:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/597413\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T19:40:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T19:40:13","slug":"can-you-train-your-brain-to-feel-less-chronic-knee-pain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/597413\/","title":{"rendered":"Can You Train Your Brain to Feel Less Chronic Knee Pain?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pain is good for you.<\/p>\n

Usually.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It lets you know you stubbed your toe.<\/p>\n

You know you\u2019re hurt because special nerve cells called nociceptors send chemical electric signals in just 150 milliseconds to the somatosensory cortex, right at the top of the skull \u2013 where the top button of a baseball cap would be. That lets you know consciously you just hit your toe on something, pain experts say.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s either, don\u2019t do that again or something more serious has happened.<\/p>\n

But sometimes pain signals go awry.<\/p>\n

What should be an ache feels like torment, with pain signals reverberating throughout the brain, not just the somatosensory cortex, said David Sherman, an assistant professor at Northeastern University\u2019s Bouv\u00e9 College of Health Sciences.<\/p>\n

\"ShermanNortheastern assistant professor of physical therapy David Sherman works on neurofeedback pain research in the Movement Neuroscience Lab Photo by Matthew Modoono\/Northeastern University<\/p>\n

\"ANortheastern University assistant professor of physical therapy David Sherman works on neuroscience pain research in the Movement Neuroscience Lab Photo by Matthew Modoono\/Northeastern University<\/p>\n

\"Close-upA closeup, seen here, of a neurofeedback device used at a Northeastern University lab for a 5-year pain study. Photo by Matthew Modoono\/Northeastern University
\nNortheastern University assistant professor of physical therapy, David Sherman, has launched a 5-year study on how neurfeedback might reduce pain caused by knee osteoarthritis, a sometimes crippling joint disease. Photos by Matthew Modoono\/Northeastern University<\/p>\n

It\u2019s called amplified pain and it can leave a person in misery on excessive medications. Or it can even cripple a person, Sherman said, adding that \u201cyou feel it, the pain is real, even though the underlying source shouldn\u2019t be causing such a severe reaction,\u201d he said,<\/p>\n

The reason baffles scientists.<\/p>\n

But Sherman, thinks he can help patients suffering from amplified pain by using neurofeedback \u2013 a way for patients to watch their own pain brainwaves in real time and learn to manipulate them and reduce the agonizing sensation without medicine.<\/p>\n

In August, he set up a lab at Northeastern with the help of a $1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health and he\u2019s launching a 5-year study into neurofeedback, focusing on knee osteoarthritis, a degenerative joint disease where the cartilage cushioning the knee bones wears away.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it works, we have a new treatment,\u201d Sherman told Northeastern Global News.<\/p>\n

Knee osteoarthritis is one of the most common causes of disability in the United States, affecting 25 million Americans, most over 50, he said. And about a third of the people with the degenerative joint disease feel amplified pain. Sometimes the pain is so pronounced, people need knee replacement surgery, even though the knee should still function, Sherman said.<\/p>\n

Ainat Rogel, a co-owner of Boston NeuroDynamics, a clinic that has been using neurofeedback for about 8 years, said that there is real progress being made in the field.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith neurofeedback, we can go to the source of the pain signals, not just the symptoms,\u201d she said, adding that pain medications only address the symptoms.<\/p>\n

She said the technique has been in development for about 50 years, but she hasn\u2019t heard of a study specifically following Sherman\u2019s focus on the knee joint.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Typically when assessing neurofeedback, the patient sits in a chair, like the one at a dental office, and in some cases, such as at Sherman\u2019s lab, an electroencephalogram device, an EEG which is like a hairnet of sorts of dime-sized electrodes and wires is placed on the head.\u00a0 Then the patient watches a screen with colored light bars or colored waving lines.<\/p>\n

The EEG maps the brainwaves in real time and they are represented on a screen as colored wavy lines, like on a seismograph, or in colored bars, where red bars and green bars rise and fall \u2013 with red representing pain.<\/p>\n

By focusing, a patient can help control the signals, and over time, the brain can \u201crewire\u201d itself so that the pain isn\u2019t felt so acutely, Rogel said.<\/p>\n

In Sherman\u2019s lab, he will study people suffering from the disorder. Pain is either safely simulated with a handheld pressure device placed on a joint, controlled motion of the knee, or other methods, he said. The pain brainwaves are mapped in real time.<\/p>\n

Sherman explained, \u201cYou can train the brain to not react as much to the stimulation of pain.\u201d<\/p>\n

He likened it to the famed Ivan Pavlov experiments of the 1890s when the scientist trained numerous dogs, mostly mutts picked off the streets of Saint Petersburg, Russia, to salivate to the sound of a bell instead of the sight of food.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was a form of neurofeedback\u201d Sherman said, explaining that the dog\u2019s brain was reprogrammed to react unconsciously to a bell instead of a meal.<\/p>\n

\"Close-upCloseup of a device that can electrically simulate pain without physically hurting a patient. It\u2019s used in neurofeedback to jumpstart pain brainwaves. Photo by Matthew Modoono\/Northeastern University<\/p>\n

Rogel said that there is still much to be learned about how the brain processes pain, but neurofeedback is viable for many conditions from from pain to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, to helping people cope with trauma.<\/p>\n

\u201cMedications help with a symptom,\u201d she said. \u201cNeurofeedback is healing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Northeastern Global News,
in your inbox.<\/p>\n

Sign up for NGN\u2019s daily newsletter for news, discovery and analysis from around the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pain is good for you. Usually.\u00a0 It lets you know you stubbed your toe. You know you\u2019re hurt…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":597414,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1596,20061,134,3193,111,139,69,11906],"class_list":["post-597413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-brain","tag-brain-imaging","tag-health","tag-medicine","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-physical-therapy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597413\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}