The Altered Functional Connectivity With Pain Features Integration and Interaction in Migraine Without Aura

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Neurology
• Pain Research

Background:

• Migraine without aura (MwoA) is a disabling neurological disorder characterized by complex pain experiences.
• The brain exhibits altered functional connectivity (FC) during both ictal and inter-ictal phases in MwoA.
• A hypothesis suggests impaired integration of pain spatial and intensity information contributes to headache intensity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate differences in resting-state FC between MwoA patients and healthy controls.
• To test the hypothesis that altered pain feature discrimination impacts clinical symptoms in MwoA.
• To explore the moderating effects of altered FC on the relationship between brain connectivity and headache intensity.

Main Methods:

• Region-to-region functional connectivity (FC) analyses were performed on resting-state fMRI data.
• Correlation matrices examined relationships between FC edges and clinical migraine symptoms.
• Moderation and simple slope tests assessed the influence of altered FC on clinical outcomes.

Main Results:

• Significantly decreased FC between the left SFGdor and left insula, and increased FC between the left SFGdor and bilateral angular gyrus were observed in MwoA patients.
• Altered FC edges showed limited correlation with headache duration, frequency, anxiety, or depression.
• One altered FC edge significantly correlated with headache intensity, and this edge moderated the link between normal edges and headache intensity.

Conclusions:

• Pain feature integration processes differ between MwoA patients and healthy controls, correlating with clinical symptoms.
• Clinical symptoms are influenced by one or more pain discrimination modules.
• Combined spatial or intensity discrimination modules have a greater impact on clinical symptoms than single modules.