A new study led by the University of babyÖ±²¥app Boulder finds that when we use our thoughts to dull or enhance our experience of pain, the physical pain signal in the brain—sent by nerves in the area of a wound, for example, and encoded in multiple regions in the cerebrum—does not actually change. Instead the act of using thoughts to modulate pain, a technique called “cognitive self-regulation†that is commonly used to manage chronic pain, works via a separate pathway in the brain.