UVa-Wise Professor, Student Part of Upcoming Discovery Channel Production
November 22, 2000

Pain really is all in our heads, according to Dr. James Horton, an assistant professor of psychology at The University of Virginia's College at Wise.

By studying how the brain responds to pain and the way some people are able to use hypnosis techniques to regulate it, Dr. Horton hopes to uncover methods that will enable individuals to reduce their perception of pain and better control chronic pain.

"If we determine the neural processes in individuals who are able to reduce their perception of pain, then, to some degree, we can teach people to reduce their perception of pain and ultimately control their pain," Dr. Horton explains. "If we can train individuals to reduce their perception of pain, they'll need less pain medicine."

Working with colleagues at the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech for three years, the researchers have tested the pain perception of several individuals. Dr. Horton, his fellow researchers and a UVa-Wise student will be part of a Discovery Health Channel production called "Alternatives: Uncovered." The program titled "Hypnotherapy, Magnet Therapy and Traditional African Medicine" will air at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 24 and again at 6 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 26.

All the participants in Dr. Horton and his colleague's research were considered to be either low or highly hypnotizable individuals. All were right-handed, non-smokers without neurological disorders. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) that measures the change in bloodflow and thereby the activity of the brain to within millimeters, researchers recorded the brain's response as electrical shock was administered to the left middle finger of the participants. In a separate experiment, using the same participants, the researchers also measured the electrical activity of the brain by electroencephalographic (EEG) and event-related-potential (ERP) recordings as electrical shock was administered to the left middle finger of the participants. Additionally, volume analyses were performed on certain brain structures of the participants by measuring the acquired images of the brain for each participant.

Dr. Horton and his colleagues are the first group of researches to use fMRI to study hypnosis and pain control. They have proposed several conclusions from their initial findings. Their research shows that highly hypnotizable individuals have more effective attentional and inhibitory systems than low hypnotizable individuals, which supports a previous proposal by Dr. Helen J. Crawford of Virginia Tech that highly hypnotizable individuals have a more effective thalmocortical system. The highly hypnotizable individuals showed a reduction of neural activity in the right hemisphere of the brain where the pain was initially registered and generally shifted the activation to the left hemisphere in a more posterior location.

Additionally, Dr. Horton and colleagues have discovered that the high hypnotizables have a significantly larger rostrum of the corpus callosum, a brain structure involved in transfer and integration of information across hemispheres of the brain. The specific region of the corpus callosum that is larger in highly hypnotizable individuals connects the regions of the hemispheres that are involved in attentional and inhibatory processes. Dr. Horton and his colleagues are currently involved in a collaborative study with a genetics laboratory in Israel to investigate the possibility of a genetic influence for hypnotizability.

"Some of the high hypnotizables were able to use imagery to block pain," Horton said.

Although not a high hypnotizable, Dr. Horton has been able to train himself to block some pain. He's had his teeth drilled for fillings without any anesthetic. Last year, an accident left him sitting in the woods behind his house with a broken leg. He was able to block the intense pain long enough to walk into his house and call for help.

One of Dr. Horton's students at UVa-Wise has an even greater ability. Dennis Yokum, a junior psychology major from Abingdon, can place himself in a hypnotic state almost immediately. Dr. Horton says Yokum has an ability only about 10 percent, or less, of the world's population possesses, a hypnotic ability so great he could probably undergo surgery without anesthetic.

Yokum will also appear on the Discovery Channel production, demonstrating how he can keep his hand comfortably in a bucket of ice water while in a hypnotic state.

"Hypnosis is effective in the relief of pain, yet we are only beginning to understand the neurophysiological processes involved in the successful reduction or elimination of conscious awareness of pain," Dr. Horton explains. "There is a strong correlation between the participants' ability to focus attention and sustain their focus and their ability to alleviate pain with hypnosis."

Dr. Horton and his colleagues will continue their research and plan to work next with a small percentage of highly hypnotizable individuals who have the unique ability to be able to achieve hypnotic hallucinations. Told they are looking at the ocean, these individuals would see sandy beaches and crashing waves rather than the inside of a research lab.

"The UVa-Wise lab is one of only a handful in the world that has the ability to study hypnosis and neuroimaging," Dr. Horton said.

Dr. Horton has presented his research at a variety of national and international conferences. He currently collaborates with researchers in the U.S. and around the world.