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Updated: Jan 8, 2026
Author Spotlight: Methodologies and Advancements of Chronic Pain Management Research
Published on: January 5, 2024
Exploring frequency-dependent and dynamic changes in brain connectivity of chronic back pain patients using degree
Hanjun Hu1, Luoyu Wang2,3, Jaiyi Deng4
1Department of Radiology, Ningbo No. 2 Hospital, Ningbo, China.
Background:
Chronic Back Pain (CBP) may lead to a reorganization of brain function, which can be observed through the indicator of degree centrality (DC). Traditional pain research has predominantly focused on static measurements of brain function within classical frequency bands, which may not fully capture the complexities of chronic pain. This study not only employed static frequency division but also incorporated dynamic analyses to capture the evolving nature of brain activity in chronic pain conditions.
Methods:
This study included a total of 31 patients with CBP and 33 age- and gender-matched healthy controls. Spontaneous brain activity was investigated by traditional DC, DC in subfrequency bands (slow-5, slow-4) and dynamic DC (dDC). Differences in brain regions between the two groups were obtained using two-sample t-tests. The association of abnormal brain regions with pain intensity and psychological tests were analyzed in parallel.
Results:
Compared to classical frequency band, the number of brain regions with changes in DC values in the slow-5 frequency band is greater. The right angular gyrus was found in both the slow-5 frequency band and the classical frequency band, while the left putamen was only found in the slow-5 frequency band. The dDC values were changed in left hippocampus, and right putamen, which were all different from the brain regions that the static DC (sDC) value altered.
Conclusion:
This study demonstrates that incorporating frequency and dynamic analysis in addition to traditional DC metrics can better understand the functional characteristics of the brain in CBP.
