Study on the Changes of Brain Function in Adolescents With Pain-Depression Comorbidity Based on rs-FMRI

The underlying mechanism of pain-depression comorbidity is not well understood. This study aims to analyze the abnormal brain activity in adolescents with pain-depression comorbidity, and to provide imaging evidence for the understanding of brain neural mechanisms of pain-depression comorbidity.

Depression in adolescents with (n = 31) and without (n = 26) comorbid pain symptoms and 28 healthy controls matched for age, gender, and education level underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) and completed the Hamilton depression scale and visual analog scale (VAS) of pain. The whole-brain amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF) and regional homogeneity (ReHo) values were compared across groups. The brain regions with significant differences in ALFF values between groups were used as seed points for whole-brain functional connectivity.

Compared with the depression group, the comorbidity group showed increased ALFF values in the right amygdala and right middle frontal gyrus, decreased ALFF values in the left middle occipital gyrus, right inferior temporal gyrus and right superior temporal gyrus, increased ReHo values in the right insula, and elevated functional connectivity between the right inferior temporal gyrus and right angular gyrus (Gaussian random field [GRF] corrected, p  < 0.05).

Compared with adolescents with depression without pain, adolescents with pain-depression comorbidity have differences in neuronal activity and functional connectivity in the middle frontal gyrus, amygdala, insular lobe, temporoparietal and occipital lobes, suggesting that abnormal neuronal activity in these brain regions may be the neural basis of pain-depression comorbidity.