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FRIDAY, Oct. 23, 2015 (HealthDay News) -- Brain chemistry may change to help people tolerate arthritis pain, a small study suggests.
Researchers applied heat to the skin of 17 people with arthritis and nine people without the disease, and found that the more opiate receptors in the brain, the higher a person's ability to withstand pain. Opiate receptors are proteins in the brain that link up with narcotic painkillers and help reduce feelings of pain.
PET scans also showed the arthritis patients had more opiate receptors, which seems to be an adaptive response to help them cope with their chronic pain, said Christopher Brown and colleagues at the University of Manchester in England.
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