The plastic brain’s own opioid receptors grow saturated. Important among Moskowitz’s findings and those of many others in the field is the suggestion that, after a short time, the opioid narcotics used for pain treatment cease to work. All of those may have some beneficial impact on certain chronic sufferers, but what is at play is a (re)modelling of the brain, a change in the way its neurons fire. Norman Doidge, a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and author of the bestselling book The Brain that Changes Itself, says such treatments are neither hypnosis, self-hypnosis nor due to a placebo effect. Having systematised the practice for his patients, he went on to improve the lives of many suffering from a range of chronic pain conditions, from back discomfort to multiple sclerosis. Treatment that involved visualizing the affected brain areas when pain struck and imagining them shrinking (engaging in “neuro-stimulation” and creating “competitive plasticity”) cured Moskowitz’s long-standing neck problem.
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