"Chronic pain is in many ways a central sensitization of pain producing pathways in the brain, " says James Rainville, a Harvard prof and chief of physical rehabilitation at New England Baptist Hospital.
The advent of such apps as Touchsurgery allows patents to visualize the steps of the operation in graphic detail, taking the mystery an fear away from the actual procedure in some ways, similar to de-sensitization therapy.
The symptoms of vicarious trauma -- stress, social withdrawal, sensitization to televised violence -- are not enough to make people violent themselves, said Barbara Rothbaum, director of the Trauma and Anxiety Recovery Program at Emory Medical School.