Abstract
Cervical discogenic pain (CDP) is a clinically common pain syndrome caused by cervical disk degeneration. A large number of studies have reported that CDP results in brain functional impairments. However, the detailed dynamic brain functional abnormalities in CDP are still unclear. In this study, using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging, we explored the neural basis of CDP with 40 CDP patients and 40 age-, gender-matched healthy controls to delineate the changes of the voxel-level static and dynamic amplitude of low frequency fluctuations (ALFF). We found increased static ALFF in left insula (INS) and posterior precuneus (PCu), and decreased static ALFF in left precentral/postcentral gyrus (PreCG/PoCG), thalamus (THA), and subgenual anterior cingulate cortex in CPD patients compared to healthy controls. We also found decreased dynamic ALFF in left PreCG/PoCG, right posterior middle temporal gyrus, and bilateral THA. Moreover, we found that static ALFF in left PreCG/PoCG and dynamic ALFF in THA were significantly negatively correlated with visual analog scale and disease duration, respectively. Our findings provide the neurophysiological basis for CDP and facilitate understanding the neuropathology of CDP.
Highlights
Cervical discogenic pain (CDP) is a clinically common pain syndrome caused by cervical disk degeneration which results in chronic pain in the head, neck, shoulder and upper limbs, as well as pain associated with numbness (Tracy and Bartleson, 2010; Thoomes et al, 2012)
We aimed to identify the brain functional abnormalities caused by CDP using static and dynamic amplitude of low frequency fluctuations (ALFF) method in 40 CDP patients and 40 age- and gender-matched healthy controls
There were significantly decreased Montreal cognitive assessment scale (MoCA) and increased Hamilton depression scale (HAMD), Hamilton anxiety scale (HAMA) scores in CDP patients compared to healthy controls (Table 1)
Summary
Cervical discogenic pain (CDP) is a clinically common pain syndrome caused by cervical disk degeneration which results in chronic pain in the head, neck, shoulder and upper limbs, as well as pain associated with numbness (Tracy and Bartleson, 2010; Thoomes et al, 2012). A few studies have reported functional connectivity and local regional homogeneity abnormalities in CDP patients using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) (Yu et al, 2017; Woodworth et al, 2018), the dynamic changes of the low-frequency oscillation in CDP is remains unknown. Resting-state fMRI is commonly used to measure the spontaneous low-frequency fluctuations of brain activities with blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signals (Biswal et al, 1995; Fox and Raichle, 2007). The amplitude of low frequency fluctuations (ALFF) is a main measurement to characterize the functional activity during resting-sate (Zang et al, 2007).
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