Resting brain functional connectivity is disrupted in chronic pain patients

ZIROVICH M.D.; TAGLIAZUCCHI, ENZO; VICTOR T.L.; FRAIMAN, DANIEL; BALENZUELA, PABLO; SCREMIN, OSCAR U.; CHIALVO, DANTE R

San Diego, California

Conferencia; Meeting of Neuroscience 2010; 2010

Society of Neuroscience, USA

Recent fMRI studies in chronic back pain (CBP) patients have shown that during a simple attention task the normal dynamics of the default mode network (DMN) is disrupted (Baliki et al, J. of Neuroscience 2008). However, the brain state at rest in these patients has not been studied yet. In this work we show that similar alterations can be detected from the fMRI data in absence of any external stimuli. These findings were cross validated using two data-driven novel approaches. In the ␣first, using a seed based correlation analysis, the correlation balance of the most functionally connected brain sites within each resting state brain network was calculated. Healthy controls show balanced negative and positive correlations between these brain sites and the rest of the brain, however, in CBP patients this balance is broken in three distinctive regions belonging to the DMN. This alterations are also detected by the second approach, which uses triggered averages to demonstrate increased spontaneous coactivation with the insulae and decreased co-activation with regions of the middle frontal gyrus. These findings show for the first time, that CBP disrupts activity in the DMN, during resting brain activity, con␣sistent with previous results during attention tasks, highlighting the impact of enduring pain over brain structure and function.