Stopped: Difficult recruitment of acute patients via emergency services due to COVID-19. The required sample size was consequently not reached within the PhD period of the involved researchers.
Around half of the patients with neck pain after trauma (whiplash) will develop chronic pain. Understanding the transition from acute to chronic pain after whiplash is a priority since will help to identify those which patients are likely to fully recover and who do not. In the last years, there have been a call for an investigation of new biomarkers; particularly in brain structure and function. Alterations in the structure of the brain (gray matter, white matter and cortical thickness) as well as the brain function have been found in people with chronic WAD; which are also correlated with pain, disability and symptoms of central sensitization such as hyperalgesia. Previous research has found structural and functional brain differences between people who develop chronic low back pain compared to those who recovered; but research in this vein is still lacking in people with whiplash. Consequently, this study aims to examine the neural correlates of recovery following whiplash injury.
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Blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) signal (functional MRI) during picture imagination task and during resting state
Timeframe: Baseline and 6-months follow-up
Structural MRI measures (i.e., grey and white matter)
Timeframe: Baseline and 6-months follow-up