Pattern analysis is the most difficult of all types of drawing analysis to undertake.
There are sophisticated computerised techniques, like artificial neural networks, that can automate pattern analysis and pattern recognition.
When sufficient pain drawings have been gathered from this and other sites we will report our results.
Mann et al (1991, 1992) were the first to publish analysis of pain drawings using artificial intelligence methods.
Since then computing power and methods have developed. We look forward to improved results of pattern recognition
One aspect of pattern analysis, is comparing pain drawing patterns from persons in pain versus the drawings made from normal individuals
who have been subjected to selective injections of pain-producing compounds.
Work by Nik Bogduk and his team in the 1990's improved injection techniques. This work resulted in a number of publications showing the pattern of pain likely from the facet joints of the spine and the sacroiliac joints.
Aprill et al (1990), Dreyfuss et al (1994), Dwyer et al (1990), Fortin eta l (1994).
Other work has shown the pain patterns associated with headache from inflation of a balloon in the vertebral arteries (Nichols et al 1993) (see figures 11 & 12). This shows overlap with pain from the cervical spine joints (see figures 1 to 5.)
and illustrates (1) that the neck can produce headaches in the frontal regions (long disputed by anatomists, till the trigeminal nucleus was shown to receive afferents from both the trigeminal nerve and the cervical nerve roots) and
(2) that the final experience of headache in the sensory cortex can be triggered by more than one structure (i.e. the cervical spine joints or the vertebral artery).