Neuroimaging of Visceral Pain

Functional neuroimaging allows conscious reporting by human subjects to be related to changes in brain activation during painful stimulation.Brain regions thought to be involved in the perception of pain include the primary and secondary somatosensory cortex, the anterior cingulate cortex, the prefrontal cortex, the insula and the thalamus.There are major similarities in how visceral pain and somatic pain are processed by the brain.No single brain region has been found to be responsible for visceral pain.Patients with IBS often activate the same brain regions as healthy controls in response to pain, but with differing intensities.Functional neuroimaging studies have failed to reach a consensus opinion on how the brain processes pain in Irritable Bowel Syndrome.