Category: Spine | Author: Stefano Sinicropi | Date: March 25, 2026
Chronic back pain can cause issues for other areas of your body. Back pain can lead to mental fatigue, it can expedite joint deterioration in your hips or knees, and a new study suggests that untreated back pain can actually negatively impact your hearing. Let’s take a closer look at how chronic back pain can affect the way you hear the world.
Chronic Back Pain And Your Hearing
According to new research published in the Annals of Neurology, individuals living with chronic back pain may experience ordinary sounds as unusually intense. The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz, examined the link between sound chronic back pain and changes in our brain that impacts sound sensitivity.
“Our findings validate what many patients have been saying for years, that everyday sounds genuinely feel harsher and more intense, “ said the paper’s senior author Yoni Ashker, PhD, assistant professor of internal medicine and co-director of the Pain Science Program at the University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine. “Their brains are responding differently, in regions that process both the loudness of sound and its emotional impact. This tells us chronic back pain isn’t just about the back. There’s a broader sensory amplification happening in the brain, and that opens the door for treatments that can help turn that volume down.”
For the study, researchers examined both self-reported experiences and brain activity in 142 adults with chronic back pain and compared them with 51 adults who did not have pain. All participants underwent MRI screening. During scans, participants completed listening tasks and rated how unpleasant they found certain sounds while researchers simultaneously tracked brain activity in regions that processed sound and emotion.
After looking at the data, researchers found:
- On average, people with chronic back pain showed stronger reactions to sound than 84 percent of pain-free participants.
- The differences did not appear in the brain’s earliest sound processing centers, but rather were observed in higher-level regions.
- Participants with chronic back pain showed increased activity in the auditory cortex, which interprets sound, and in the insula, which helps regulate emotions and bodily awareness.
- Participants with chronic back pain showed decreased activity in the medial prefrontal cortex, which helps regulate emotional responses.
Interestingly, researchers took the study a step further to see if specific treatments could influence the brain’s response to auditory inputs. Participants were grouped into one of three treatment groups – Pain Reprocessing Therapy, placebo treatment or continue existing treatments. Researchers found that of the given options, patients who pursued pain Pain Reprocessing Therapy experienced the best results in terms of reducing heightened brain responses to sound.
“This shows that the brain’s exaggerated sensory response can improve with psychological treatment, so instead of being something patients are stuck with, this sensitivity is treatable,” said Ashar. “These findings add to growing evidence that chronic back pain is not just a problem in the back; the brain plays a central role in driving chronic pain by amplifying a range of sensations – sensory signals from the back, sounds, and likely other sensations as well.”
If you’re struggling with chronic back pain and you’ve found that sounds and noise have seemingly become harsher, know that it’s not all in your head and there are treatment options available to you. For more information about overcoming back pain and its related issues, connect with Dr. Sinicropi and the team at Midwest Spine & Brain Institute today at (651) 430-3800.
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