Pain Modulating Effects of Ketamine

Pain perception in the body is influenced when the upper sites of the central nervous system form two pathways that are descending, one which inhibits pain and the other which facilitates the pain. When these two pathways change the way they function or an imbalance is detected by the central nervous system someone will start to experience pain. Patients who experience chronic pains have pain receptors which are antagonists to Ketamine; these receptors are called the N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA). Ketamine makes chronic pain patients receive little or no pain because pain control is inhibited internally. There are two mechanisms in the body of chronic pain patients which are involved in descending the inhibitory nature of pain, one of the mechanisms is the Diffuse Noxious Inhibitory Control (DNIC) and the other mechanism is the Offset Analgesia (OA). Current studies are, therefore, carried out to investigate if Ketamine affects the responses Diffuse Noxious Inhibitory Control (DNIC) and Offset Analgesia (OA) as far as the control of pain in chronic pain patients is concerned. The studies are carried out using a paradigm called Conditioned Pain Modulation (CPM).