title: Motor imagery in people with a history of back pain, current back pain, both, or neither.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  There is mounting evidence that cortical maps are disrupted in chronic limb pain and that these disruptions may contribute to the problem and be a viable target for treatment. Little is known as to whether this is also the case for the most common and costly chronic pain-back pain.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To investigate the effects of back pain characteristics on the performance of left/right trunk judgment tasks, a method of testing the integrity of cortical maps.
  
  
  METHODS
  A total of 1008 volunteers completed an online left/right trunk judgment task in which they judged whether a model was rotated or laterally flexed to the left or right in a series of images.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Participants who had back pain at the time of testing were less accurate than pain-free controls (P=0.027), as were participants who were pain free but had a history of back pain (P<0.01). However, these results were driven by an interaction such that those with current back pain and a history of back pain were less accurate (mean [95% CI]=76% [74%-78%]) than all other groups (>84% [83%-85%]).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Trunk motor imagery performance is reduced in people with a history of back pain when they are in a current episode. This is consistent with disruption of cortical proprioceptive representation of the trunk in this group. On the basis of this result, we propose a conceptual model speculating a role of this measure in understanding the development of chronic back pain, a model that can be tested in future studies.
authors.affiliation: *Sansom Institute for Health Research, University of South Australia and PainAdelaide †Neuro Orthopaedic Institute, Adelaide, SA, Australia.
authors.forename: K Jane
authors.initials: KJ
authors.lastname: Bowering
authors.forename: David S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Butler
authors.forename: Ian J
authors.initials: IJ
authors.lastname: Fulton
authors.forename: G Lorimer
authors.initials: GL
authors.lastname: Moseley
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001416:Back Pain / Q000523:psychology* / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D019018:Imagery, Psychotherapy / Q000379:methods*; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000502:physiology*; D010147:Pain Measurement; D011930:Reaction Time; D012399:Rotation; D055815:Young Adult