"Chronic pain is a huge issue for a lot of people, and for most, it's not sufficiently treatable," said Cory Gloeckner, lead author on the paper. "Right now, one of the ways that we try to treat pain is opioids, and we all know that doesn't work out well for many people. This, on the other hand, is a non-invasive, simple application. It's not some expensive medical device that you have to buy in order to treat your pain. It's something that we think would be available to pretty much anyone because of its low cost and simplicity." The researchers plan to continue investigating this "multimodal" approach to treating different neurological conditions, potentially integrating music therapy in the future to see how they can further modify the somatosensory cortex.