A study published in The Journal of Neuroscience in November, 2004, found that the gray matter of the brain can shrink up to 11% in one year in those with chronic back pain, the same amount of brain density that is lost in 10 to 20 years of normal aging. That is equivalent to a loss of 1.3 centimeters of gray matter a year.

The gray matter of the brain is the area that processes memory and information and is located in the cortex.

It is well known that chronic back pain can increase levels of stress, anxiety and depression. However, lead researcher A. Vania Apkarian writes that it was assumed any brain changes revert to a normal state after the pain stopped.

The study, which was done at Northwestern University, used MRI to compare brain images of 26 people with chronic back pain to 26 people without. All those who had experienced back pain had it for more than a year, although the cause of the back pain was not taken into account.

Thus, it is suggested that proper treatment of chronic back pain could reverse at least some of the brain matter loss.

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References: A. Vania Apkarian, Yamaya Sosa, Sreepadma Sonty, Robert M. Levy, R. Norman Harden, Todd B. Parrish, and Darren R. Gitelman, "Chronic Back Pain Is Associated with Decreased Prefrontal and Thalamic Gray Matter Density", The Journal of Neuroscience, November 17, 2004, 24(46):10410-10415; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2541-04.2004