Chronic pain circuitry, recent research findings

[Volcano1963]

I found this report on recent neuroscience research results that validated the existence of two different neural circuitries for chronic vs acute pain very interesting so I am sharing it. https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2026/04/chronic-acute-pain-circuits-systems-research-treatments

I’ve been exploring neuroscience resources to help me get a handle on relationship and dynamics between my TMS Symptoms (ugh, maybe stop capitalizing Symptoms?), my thoughts-feelings, non-pain body sensations, and the transference between them all. So far, the ones that are serving as foundational for me (in addition to Sarno texts) are
-incognito (Dave Eagleman),
-chapters 2-6 of https://ia601604.us.archive.org/35/...he-score-pdf/The-Body-Keeps-the-Score-PDF.pdf and maybe several other chaptersthat don’t detail trauma in such extensive detail…
-Molecules of emotion, candace pert
-Seeing the mind, stanislas dehaene

the ones i’m in the middle of and because they are so good i’m continuing to read,
-Behave, robert sapolsky
The Spike, mark humphries
Neurobiology for dummies, frank amthor and anne theibert

There’s a bunch i’ve started but dropped because they don’t give enough room for TMS thinking such as several dealing with the vagus nerve for example, stanley rosenberg’s, accessing the healing power of the vagus nerve.
I apologize if this post ought best to go on a different thread.
;-)

 

[Cactusflower]

Love that you have an open mind, but be aware all these things are simply tools and not the “fixes”. Dr. Hanscom talks a lot in terms of these being tools of augmentation to Sarno’s methods - in other words, they aren’t substitutes for the knowledge about TMS, the psychological and mindset factors.
Somatic Tracking
Meditation
Journaling
Sound: get specific hertz
Breath Work
Tai Chi or Qui Gong
Walking (sitting) quietly in nature
Vegas nerve stimulation

Plus many other things are all great tools, especially for the nervous system side.
Perhaps in your research you might continue to share your findings. I think it would be really helpful for folks who struggle with finding perfect methods of healing so they have a list of things to experiment with. I was lucky enough to find a series of books written by a woman who experimented with many methods and also found the movie Love Heals, that shows other methods. I don’t know about the science behind those methods.

 

[Volcano1963]

found the movie Love Heals

TY!! Enthused to find it’s free to watch on PBS, and to @JanAtheCPA point about subscribing to these “free” resources like Libby, I’m a PBS subscriber.
This community is such a treasure of resources and support. TY,TY!!!

 

[Volcano1963]

Perhaps in your research you might continue to share your findings.

Thank you for the encouragement, yes I will. At the moment I’m exploring the potential scientific explanations for a TMS symptom that I had previously understood to have originated from an injury.
About a year ago I and physical therapists thought I had a labrum tear in my right groin as a result of over exertion during my new strength training class. This happened about a month after I made the decision to leave the job I loved to retire and be 24/7 available for my 95 year old father struggling with dementia. I had to wait awhile after the x-ray for insurance to approve the MRI which showed swelling but no tear. Fast forward to now with my new understanding of TMS symptoms, and the realization that that particular TMS symptom that had showed up in my right groin might be linked to body sensations (pain) in that same hip area that I had had during a mediation retreat. Were they/are they linked to the same subconsciously held emotions?
At the beginning of the retreat I was in agony from pain in my hip (this was 15 years ago) but stubbornly didn’t want to sit in a chair. When the meditation teacher said I could not ice it during meditation I decided to become as aware of it as I could. I followed the pain and got to the point where I “felt” the sensation of pain being immediately followed by swelling. It felt like I was observing a chemical signal and response. At the time I thought the hip stuff was due to an earlier injury that was flaring up. When I put attention on the initial “chemical signal” the subsequent swelling didn’t happen and the pain subsided rapidly. Luckily after the mediation course it didn’t bother me enough to seek medical treatment. I shudder to think I would have been an easy candidate for a hip replacement.
Now, because I see that earlier hip pain as just another TMS symptom it is opening my eyes to other symptoms I have ascribed to medical/physical conditions such as my life-time egg allergy. This gets into (for me) the woo-woo realm. Although I am open to the woo-woo realm, I tend to come with a skeptical scientific mindset that acknowledges we don’t know much about things we can’t yet explain. For example, it wasn’t until recently that there was enough research on the interstitium (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/05/11/magazine/interstitium-anatomy-acupuncture-medicine.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share (The Astounding Discovery That Could Link Eastern and Western Medicine)) for western science to have a plausible mechanism explaining acupuncture. So now I’m curious whether my life-long allergies are just early TMS symptoms. This would mean my mind was actively protecting me at 1 year old. This calls into question the mechanism of a lot of stuff such as epigenic molecular responses, fetal/in utero response to maternal stress, and the stories of meditators who were able to process toxins out of their body without harm. I want to learn from those who know how this works at the immunological/physical level. So I keep exploring and thanks to your encouragement @Cactusflower I won’t inhibit myself from blabbing on about what I discover about this on the wiki.

 

[Cactusflower]

So I sense that you are not only beginning to associate the fact that pain: or feeling and sensation can be attached to "feelings" or emotions but it's the subsequent incessant obsession, the meaning (or the story) and the emotions and stress it all creates that are the essence of TMS.
We can heal and not obsess, worry or mentally suffer over our injuries or we can attach much more to them and then they become chronic and in essence TMS - TMS is not just the pain (or physical sensations) but it is also the suffering and mental/emotional "symptoms" that go along with it.
I just watched a Dr. talk about things like toxins and oxidative stress and he believes that our bodies are remarkably made and that things like pollution and food etc. make up a minimal margin in wellness. His examples are that the average person lives to about 85, and that exposure to the elements like toxins on average only decrease lifespan by a year or two. He notes that this is a small percentage margin and he finds that his patients who are obsessive, anxious, worry a lot and highly perfectionistic worry more about that small percentage than they do enjoying and living life to it's fullest the other 97% of their life. I've heard Gabor Matte say something similar.
Gabor also does talk about fetal response to maternal stress - all of which he is always trying to document but in many ways is still hypothesis - still ask he worked with people and heard their stories, he believes in a great link. I myself believe that is where some of my lifetime anxiety came into play but it was not the extent of my learning the behavior of anxiety. Many of these things I link more to behavior in some people than to innate traits which doesn't always make that much difference in the way they present in a person. I think it makes more of a difference in how you approach living with them.