Altered brain network centrality in patients with trigeminal neuralgia: a resting-state fMRI study

Abstract

Background Neuroimaging studies revealed that trigeminal neuralgia was related to alternations in brain anatomical function and regional function. However, the functional characteristics of network organization in the whole brain is unknown. Purpose The aim of the present study was to analyze potential functional network brain-activity changes and their relationships with clinical features in patients with trigeminal neuralgia via the voxel-wise degree centrality method. Material and Methods This study involved a total of 28 trigeminal neuralgia patients (12 men, 16 women) and 28 healthy controls matched in sex, age, and education. Spontaneous brain activity was evaluated by degree centrality. Correlation analysis was used to examine the correlations between behavioral performance and average degree centrality values in several brain regions. Results Compared with healthy controls, trigeminal neuralgia patients had significantly higher degree centrality values in the right lingual gyrus, right postcentral gyrus, left paracentral lobule, and bilateral inferior cerebellum. Receiver operative characteristic curve analysis of each brain region confirmed excellent accuracy of the areas under the curve. There was a positive correlation between the mean degree centrality value of the right postcentral gyrus and VAS score (r = 0.885, P < 0.001). Conclusions Trigeminal neuralgia causes abnormal brain network activity in multiple brain regions, which may be related to underlying disease mechanisms.

Trigeminal neuralgia: An overview from pathophysiology to pharmacological treatments

“…65,67 In addition to structural changes, fMRI studies demonstrated different patterns of brain activation in patients with TN when compared to healthy controls. 66,68,69,74–76 A different pattern of activation was also observed in TN patients who report pain after stimulation of trigger zones versus patients who do not. 68 Patients with pain evoked by light tactile stimulation showed a bilateral activation of the primary and secondary somatosensory cortices, the ACC, and the prefrontal cortex, contralateral activation of insula and thalamus, ipsilateral activation of the medial cingulate cortex and spinal trigeminal nucleus, and activation of the medial brainstem, including the periaqueductal gray.…”

Altered brain functional network dynamics in classic trigeminal neuralgia: a resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging study

“…Previously, some rs-fMRI studies using graph theory have attempted to characterize the global brain modularity as well as key nodal features in CTN to elucidate the reorganization processes of brain networks [ 8 , 27 ]. Given that the FC between brain regions is constrained by the brain topological organization [ 28 ], aberrant dFNC pattern may be additionally accompanied by altered dynamic topological properties.…”

Regional brain changes in patients with diabetic optic neuropathy: a resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging study

“…When the DON patient is examined, the functional state of the visual cortex and visual pathway can be noninvasively assessed. Therefore, resting fMRI has been successfully applied in the neurological studies of specific eye diseases (9)(10)(11).…”