Abstract
BackgroundFibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) is a chronic condition characterized by widespread pain and associated symptoms. We investigated cerebral activation in FMS patients by functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS).MethodsTwo stimulation paradigms were applied: a) painful pressure stimulation at the dorsal forearm; b) verbal fluency test (VFT). We prospectively recruited 25 FMS patients, ten patients with unipolar major depression (MD) without pain, and 35 healthy controls. All patients underwent neurological examination and all subjects were investigated with questionnaires (pain, depression, FMS, empathy).ResultsFMS patients had lower pressure pain thresholds than patients with MD and controls (p < 0.001) and reported higher pain intensity (p < 0.001). Upon unilateral pressure pain stimulation fNIRS recordings revealed increased bilateral cortical activation in FMS patients compared to controls (p < 0.05). FMS patients also displayed a stronger contralateral activity over the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in direct comparison to patients with MD (p < 0.05). While all three groups performed equally well in the VFT, a frontal deficit in cortical activation was only found in patients with depression (p < 0.05). Performance and cortical activation correlated negatively in FMS patients (p < 0.05) and positively in patients with MD (p < 0.05).ConclusionOur data give further evidence for altered central nervous processing in patients with FMS and the distinction between FMS and MD.Trial registrationISRCTN registry ID ISRCTN15015327 (24.09.2015).Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12883-015-0472-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) is a chronic condition characterized by widespread pain and associated symptoms
Based on data from functional magnetic resonance imaging studies [17], we hypothesized that pain associated cortical activation in FMS patients is stronger and has a wider spatial distribution compared to controls that can be detected with functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS)
Functional NIRS recordings Data acquisition We investigated cortical activation of the study participants with fNIRS during two tasks: 1) Muscular pressure pain: fNIRS measurements were performed during the application of painful pressure on the muscle bulk of the finger extensors of the dominant hand side using a calibrated algesiometer (Wagner Instruments, USA; Additional file 3: Figure S2)
Summary
Fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) is a chronic condition characterized by widespread pain and associated symptoms. Based on data from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies [17], we hypothesized that pain associated cortical activation in FMS patients is stronger and has a wider spatial distribution compared to controls that can be detected with fNIRS. To test this hypothesis we performed fNIRS under painful stimulation in groups of Üçeyler et al BMC Neurology (2015) 15:210 patients with FMS, unipolar major depression (MD) without pain, and healthy controls. Since cognitive impairment is frequently reported by FMS patients and supporting findings have been reported [18] we performed fNIRS under cognitive stimulation
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