The Link Between Fibromyalgia and Pelvic Pain as Shown in Brain Scans

At the University of Michigan, researchers studied how both of the conditions could very well be related to one another. Finding out this information, researchers also discovered that these conditions were hard to treat in one form or another. Looking at various MRI brain scans over time and from around 1,000 patients, researchers chanced upon a rather startling discovery during their studies of fibromyalgia. Those who were examined were done so by the Multidiscipline Approach to the Study of Chronic Pelvic Pain Research Network, which is also known as the MAPP study. In this particular research project, studies were done upon people with chronic urological pelvic pain and cases of fibromyalgia. Those who reported both of these symptoms were shown to have a higher amount of what is referred to as 'gray matter' in the brain. This gray matter is tissue that the brain uses to assist in sending signals between the different nerves. Pain that can be put together in this form generally have some kind of relationship, as scientists discovered with recent findings.