Cortical reorganization manifested as reduced thickness in patients with peripheral neuropathic pain
Poster No:
135
Submission Type:
Abstract Submission
Authors:
Chien-Ho Lin1, Tsai-Jou Su1, Chung-Wei Lee1, Sung-Tsang Hsieh2, Chi-Chao Chao3, Ming-Chang Chiang1
Institutions:
1National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taipei, Taiwan, 2National Taiwan University College of Medicine, Taipei, Taiwan, 3National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan
First Author:
Co-Author(s):
Introduction:
Peripheral neuropathic pain is a consequence of enhanced nociceptive sensitivity due to lesions or diseases of peripheral nerves. Although such pain originates from peripheral nerve injury, its effects are far beyond the peripheral nervous system. Previous research documented that long-term abnormal sensory input associated with chronic neuropathic pain may induce maladaptive neural plasticity, causing structural and functional alterations of the brain. The current study aimed to investigate changes in cortical thickness in patients with neuropathic pain due to peripheral neuropathy, to identify neuroimaging biomarkers for brain structural disruptions following peripheral neuropathic pain.
Methods:
We recruited 92 patients with neuropathic pain due to peripheral neuropathy (46 women, age = 53.5 9.8 years), and 97 age- and sex-matched healthy adults (44 women, age = 50.8 13.4 years) for controls. All participants received MRI scanning on a Siemens-Trio 3T scanner (Erlangen, Germany) for acquisition of the T1-weighted image under the magnetization-prepared rapid gradient-echo (MP-RAGE) sequence (TR/TI/TE = 2530/1100/2.27 ms; flip angle = 9°; FoV = 251 × 220 mm; acquisition matrix = 256 × 224 × 176; voxel dimensions = 0.98 × 0.98 × 1 mm). The thickness of the cerebral cortex was estimated from the T1-weighted MR image using the CAT12 toolbox (http://www.neuro.uni-jena.de/cat/, (Dahnke, Yotter et al. 2013)) implemented in SPM12. Cortical thickness was defined as the distance between the pial and the gray-white matter boundary surfaces, and estimated using the projection-based thickness method (Dahnke, Yotter et al. 2013). The surface map of cortical thickness was mapped to the MNI space, followed by Gaussian smoothing at 15-mm FWHM. Differences in cortical thickness between the patients and controls were compared using a two-sample t-test. Multiple comparisons across the cortical surface were corrected using the 'threshold free cluster enhancement' (TFCE) algorithm (Smith and Nichols 2009) to control the cluster-level family-wise error (FWE) at a level of 0.05 after 5000 permutations.
Results:
Figure 1 shows a significant reduction in cortical thickness in patients (Pt) with neuropathic pain compared with controls (Ctrl), particularly in pain-related cortical areas including bilateral anterior cingulate cortices, prefrontal cortices, supramarginal gyri, and precentral gyri.
Conclusions:
The current study demonstrates widespread cortical thinning in patients with peripheral neuropathic pain, showing that cortical reorganization is a manifestation of maladaptive plasticity following chronic neuropathic pain. Our findings also show that cortical thickness may serve as a biomarker that facilitates future assessments of pharmacological or non-pharmacological interventions for the treatment of neuropathic pain.
Disorders of the Nervous System:
Neurodegenerative/ Late Life (eg. Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s) 1
Perception, Attention and Motor Behavior:
Perception: Pain and Visceral 2
Keywords:
MRI
Peripheral Nerve
Other - cortical thickness
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
·Figure 1. Reduction in cortical thickness in patients with neuropathic pain
Provide references using author date format
Smith, S. M. and T. E. Nichols (2009). "Threshold-free cluster enhancement: addressing problems of smoothing, threshold dependence and localisation in cluster inference." Neuroimage 44(1): 83-98.