What is the difference between anatomical and physiological testing?
Very often, physicians fail to recognize the distinction between anatomical tests, and physiological tests, which is a critical issue, since each category of testing provides a different answer to the same question, and the degree of correlation is very poor. An anatomical test merely takes a picture of a structure, while a physiological test records a person’s response to an event. As an example, X-rays, CT, and MRI are merely anatomical tests, because all they do is take a picture. However, a bone scan, or Indium 111 scan, or PET scan or Gallium scan takes a picture of the physiological uptake of various chemicals, and nerve conduction velocity studies measure the speed of response to a nerve when you put an electrical current into it. The same rationale applies to the use of other physiological tests, used to make diagnoses in chronic pain patients, such as root blocks, nerve blocks, facet blocks, neurometer studies, somatosensory evoked potentials, and flexion-extension X-rays with
