Changes of the postcentral cortex in irritable bowel syndrome patients

The postcentral cortex (poCC) is commonly found to respond to visceral stimulation, but researchers usually pay less attention to this role of the poCC in the patients with functional gastrointestinal disorders, because it is a primary receptor for general bodily feeling of touch, such as temperature and pain. The current study focuses on the changes around the poCC in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) patients based on the resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging, aiming to investigate whether the poCC-centric brain metrics may be directly related to visceral perception. In the study, we calculated the regional homogeneity, seed-based correlation (SBC) and nodal centralities of the poCC to explore the changes in the regional activity and information flow around the poCC in IBS patients. Moreover, we examined the performance of the poCC-centric features in classifying the IBS group and healthy group in comparison to those features unrelated to the poCC. The results found that central alterations around the poCC in IBS patients were associated with the level of visceral pain, and exhibited a better discriminative power than those around the whole brain and the insula when classifying the IBS group and healthy group. In conclusion, the preliminary investigation provided fundamental advances in understanding the roles of the poCC in the pathphysiology of the IBS.