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Altered regional brain morphology in patients with chronic facial pain
Tobias Schmidt-Wilcke1, Stefanie Hierlmeier, Elke Leinisch
1Department of Neurology, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany.
Background:
Persistent idiopathic facial pain (PIFP) is defined as a persistent, unilateral facial pain, not associated with sensory loss or other physical signs and with no obvious structural abnormalities that would sufficiently explain pain experience.
Objective:
We were interested whether there is evidence of altered brain morphology in patients with PIFP as it has been described in other chronic pain conditions.
Methods:
Using voxel-based morphometry we investigated regional gray matter volume in 11 PIFP patients and 11 age- and sex-matched healthy controls. Furthermore we calculated lateralization indices (LI) to investigate differences in interhemispheric gray matter asymmetries.
Results:
We report a decrease in gray matter volume in the left anterior cingulate gyrus and left temporo-insular region, as well as in the left and right sensory-motor area, projecting to the representational area of the face. Analyses of LI values demonstrated an increased rightward asymmetry in the middle-anterior insular cortex in patients in comparison with healthy controls.
Conclusion:
Our data support previous findings showing that chronic pain states are display-altered brain morphology in brain regions know to be part of the pain system.
