Despite the rapid advances in medical science, the majority of people who visit a doctor have medically unexplained symptoms (MUS), symptoms that remain a mystery despite extensive diagnostic studies. The most common MUS are back pain, abdominal pain, headache, fatigue, and dizziness.  This book addresses the obstacles of managing people with MUS in our modern day society from both a historical and contemporary perspective.

Most MUS are psychosomatic in origin, caused by a complex interaction between nature and nurture, between biological and psychosocial factors.  Psychosomatic symptoms are as real and as severe as the symptoms associated with structural damage to the brain.  Unique and concise, the book explores the biological and psychosocial mechanisms, the clinical features, and current and future treatments of common MUS. 

Exploring the unsolved in an accessible manner, Medically Unexplained Symptoms invokes the methodologies of medical science, history, and sociology to investigate how brain flaws can lead to debilitating symptoms. 

<p>Introduction</p><p> </p><p>Chapter 1. Overview of Medically Unexplained Symptoms</p><p>                Pain </p><p>                Brain flaws </p><p>                Fear </p><p>                Anxiety</p><p>                Dizziness </p><p>                Stress </p><p>                Fatigue</p><p>                Diagnostic uncertainty</p><p> </p><p>Chapter 2. Early ideas on hysteria</p><p>                Hysteria and female sexuality</p><p>                Bizarre behaviors</p><p>                Hysteria and the occult</p><p>                Nerves</p><p>                Hysteria, a nervous disorder</p><p>                Early treatments of hysteria</p><p>                Spinal irritation and the spinal reflex theory</p><p>                The attack on the female genitalia</p><p>                Hysteria and fasting girls</p><p> </p><p>Chapter 3. The Golden age of Hysteria</p><p>                Briquet's syndrome</p><p>                Charcot and his hysterical circus</p><p>                Hysteria and hypnosis</p><p>                Borderlands of hypnosis</p><p>                Nature or nurture</p><p>                Ideas about hysteria evolve</p><p>                Neurasthenia and neurosis</p>                Americanitis<p></p><p>                S Weir Mitchell and the Civil War</p><p>                The Rest Cure</p><p>                S Weir Mitchell, the enigma</p><p>                Nerve doctors</p><p>                Evolution and the brain</p><p> </p><p>Chapter 4. Psychosomatic illness in the 20th Century</p><p>                Freud, the early years</p><p>                Breuer's famous patient, Bertha Pappenheim</p><p>                Freud and Breuer's book on hysteria</p><p>                Suppressed memories and childhood sexuality</p><p>                Freud's model of the mind</p><p>                Overall impact of psychoanalysis</p><p>                Physicians, patients and psychosomatic symptoms</p><p>                Common sense psychotherapy</p><p>                Alternate medical treatments and suggestibility</p><p>                War and Psychogenic Illness</p><p>                PTSD the prototypical delayed stress disorder</p><p>                Relationship between PTSD and mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI)</p><p>                Psychosomatic medicine</p><p> </p>Chapter 5. Biological mechanisms of Psychosomatic Symptoms<p></p><p>                The biological link between stress and illness</p><p>                                The hypothalamic-sympathetic-adrenal axis</p><p>                                The brain's emotional center, the limbic system</p><p>                                The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis</p><p>                Pavlov and neural plasticity</p><p>                Hebb's Synapse</p><p>                Molecular mechanisms of brain plasticity</p><p>                Stress and the limbic system</p><p>                                Nerve growth factors and stress</p><p>                                The amygdala-prefrontal cortex connection</p><p>                Central sensitization, a model of neuroplasticity</p><p>                                The descending pain modulatory system (DPMS)</p><p>                Brain neurotransmitters </p><p>                                Gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA)</p><p>                                Noradrenalin</p><p>                                Serotonin</p><p>                                Dopamine</p><p>                                Cannibinoids</p><p>                Stress and human behavior</p><p>                                Operant conditioning and behavioral therapy</p><p> </p><p>Chapter 6. Psychosocial mechanisms of psychosomatic Symptoms</p><p>                How can beliefs and expectations change brain function? </p><p>                Doctor patient relationship and psychosomatic symptoms</p><p>                The power of the placebo</p><p>                Placebo's evil twin, nocebo</p><p>                                Statins and muscle pain and weakness</p><p>                                Glutens and Celiac disease</p><p>                                Expectations and beliefs</p><p>                                Hyperventilation syndrome</p><p>                Idiopathic environmental intolerance and the nocebo effect</p><p>                                The Belgium Coca-Cola fiasco</p><p>                                Electromagnetic hypersensitivity</p><p>                                Infrasound sensitivity</p><p>                                Sick building syndrome</p><p>                Summary of Idiopathic environmental intolerance mechanisms       </p><p> </p><p>Chapter 7. Low back pain, abdominal pain and headache</p><p>                Overview of common pain syndromes</p><p>                Low back pain</p><p>                                Historical perspective</p><p>                                Current approach to chronic low back pain </p><p>                                Physical activity and expectation  </p><p>                                Depression and fear avoidance</p><p>                Abdominal pain</p><p>                                Autonomic nervous system and the gut</p><p>                                Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)</p><p>                                Peptic ulcer disease  </p>                Primary headache disorders<p></p><p>                Migraine as a model for psychophysiological illnesses          </p><p>                                Historical perspective</p><p>                                Migraine Auras  </p><p>                                Early ideas on the cause of migraine</p><p>                                Mechanism of the migraine aura  </p><p>                                Genetic susceptibility to migraine</p><p> </p><p>Chapter 8. Fibromyalgia/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome</p><p>                Pain but much more</p><p>                Fibromyalgia</p><p>                                Tender points</p><p>                                Central sensitization to pain</p><p>                Repetitive strain injury (RSI)</p><p>                Chronic fatigue </p><p>                Epidemic and sporadic neuromyasthenia</p><p>                Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)</p><p>                Chronic fatigue immune dysfunction syndrome (CFIDS)</p><p>                Myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME)</p><p>                Overlap with depression and other psychogenic illnesses</p><p>                Genetics of fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome</p><p> </p><p>Chapter 9. Chronic dizziness</p><p>                Anxiety and Dizziness </p><p>                Near faint dizziness and fainting</p><p>                                Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS)</p><p>                                Dizziness and mass psychogenic illness</p><p>                Persistent Postural Perceptual Dizziness (PPPD)</p><p>                Migrainous dizziness</p><p>                Post Concussion Dizziness</p><p>                Sea legs and mal de Debarquement syndrome </p><p>                Height vertigo and acrophobia</p><p> </p>Chapter 10. Treatment of psychosomatic symptoms<p></p><p>                Lifestyle changes </p><p>                                Exercise and the brain</p><p>                                Sleep and eating habits</p><p>                Mindfulness</p>                Cognitive Behavioral Therapy<p></p><p>                Internet Directed Therapy</p><p>                Drug treatments </p><p>                Drugs that increase brain monoamines (antidepressants)</p><p>                Drugs that decrease excitatory (glutamate) transmission</p><p>                                Antiepileptic drugs</p><p>                                Anxiolytic drugs</p><p>                Drugs that enhance neuroplasticity and neurogenesis</p><p>                                Ketamine, the new "wonder drug"</p><p>                Drugs that effect endocannibinoid neurotransmission</p><p>                Extracranial Brain stimulation</p><p>                                Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)</p><p>                                Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS)</p><p>                                Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)</p><p>                Deep brain stimulation</p><p>                                DBS for PTSD</p><p>                Future Directions</p>