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Updated: Jul 8, 2025
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Author Spotlight: Methodologies and Advancements of Chronic Pain Management Research
Published on: January 5, 2024
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Altered Dynamic Functional Network Connectivity in Healthy Adults with Acute Pain: Findings from the Human Connectome
Summary
Acute pain significantly alters dynamic brain connectivity patterns, affecting how brain networks interact over time. Individuals with pain spend more time in specific brain states, offering new insights for pain biomarker discovery.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Medical Imaging
- Pain Research
Background:
- Understanding the neural basis of pain is crucial for treatment efficacy and clinical research.
- The dynamic nature of brain processing in pain states remains largely unexplored.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the impact of acute pain on dynamic functional network connectivity (dFNC) using resting-state fMRI.
- To identify differences in brain network dynamics between individuals with and without acute pain.
Main Methods:
- Utilized independent component analysis (ICA) and k-means clustering on Human Connectome Project (HCP) data.
- Analyzed temporal dFNC using sliding time window correlation.
- Compared dFNC state properties and meta-state metrics between acute pain and control groups.
Main Results:
- Acute pain significantly impacted dFNC in key networks including salience, default mode, and executive networks (FDR-corrected p < 0.05).
- Individuals with acute pain exhibited altered mean dwell times in specific dynamic states.
- Significant group differences were observed in meta-state metrics, including state transitions and total travelled distances.
Conclusions:
- Acute pain dynamically alters functional brain network connectivity.
- Time-varying brain states and their transitions are sensitive to acute pain.
- State-based analysis of brain dynamics holds promise for pain biomarker discovery.
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