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Updated: May 17, 2026

Electrophysiological Methods to Assess Peripheral Pain Block in an Anesthetized Rat
Published on: November 21, 2025
Default mode network connectivity encodes clinical pain: an arterial spin labeling study
Marco L Loggia1, Jieun Kim, Randy L Gollub
1Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School (HMS), Boston, MA, USA Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, HMS, Boston, MA, USA MGH/MIT/HMS Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Charlestown, MA, USA Program in Placebo Studies & the Therapeutic Encounter, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, HMS, Boston, MA, USA Department of Psychiatry, Brigham and Women's Hospital, HMS, Boston, MA, USA.
Resting brain connectivity, particularly within the default mode network (DMN), shows promise as a biomarker for chronic pain. Changes in DMN connectivity correlate with pain intensity and predict responses to pain-inducing maneuvers in chronic low back pain patients.
Area of Science:
- Neuroimaging
- Neuroscience
- Pain Research
Background:
- Chronic pain is associated with brain alterations, but traditional neuroimaging faces challenges in studying pain perception circuitry.
- Resting-state brain connectivity is a potential marker, yet studies often lack within-subject pain exacerbation analysis.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate resting-state brain connectivity in chronic low back pain (cLBP) patients compared to controls.
- To examine how pain exacerbation maneuvers affect brain connectivity within subjects.
- To identify potential neuroimaging biomarkers for chronic pain perception.
Main Methods:
- Utilized dual regression probabilistic Independent Component Analysis on arterial spin labeling data.
- Compared resting-state brain connectivity between cLBP patients and healthy controls.
- Assessed connectivity changes before and after pain-exacerbating physical maneuvers in cLBP patients.
Main Results:
- Patients with cLBP showed altered default mode network (DMN) connectivity, particularly with the right insula (rINS) and pregenual anterior cingulate cortex (pgACC).
- Baseline DMN-rINS connectivity positively correlated with clinical pain intensity and changed with pain exacerbation maneuvers.
- Baseline DMN connectivity predicted maneuver-induced changes in pain and DMN-rINS connectivity.
Conclusions:
- Arterial spin labeling is a viable tool for evaluating clinical pain.
- Resting-state DMN connectivity serves as a potential neuroimaging biomarker for chronic pain perception.
- Within-subject changes in DMN connectivity reflect dynamic pain modulation.
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