Cortical Thickness in Migraine: A Coordinate-Based Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Cortical thickness (CTh) via surface-based morphometry analysis is a popular method to characterize brain morphometry. Many studies have been performed to investigate CTh abnormalities in migraine. However, the results from these studies were not consistent and even conflicting. These divergent results hinder us to obtain a clear picture of brain morphometry regarding CTh alterations in migraine. Coordinate-based meta-analysis (CBMA) is a promising technique to quantitatively pool individual neuroimaging studies to identify consistent brain areas involved. Electronic databases (PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, WanFang, and SinoMed) and other sources (bioRxiv and reference lists of relevant articles and reviews) were systematically searched for studies that compared regional CTh differences between patients with migraine and healthy controls (HCs) up to May 15, 2020. A CBMA was performed using the Seed-based d Mapping with Permutation of Subject Images approach. In total, we identified 16 studies with 17 datasets reported that were eligible for the CBMA. The 17 datasets included 872 patients with migraine (average sample size 51.3, mean age 39.6 years, 721 females) and 949 HCs (average sample size 59.3, mean age 44.2 years, 680 females). The CBMA detected no statistically significant consistency of CTh alterations in patients with migraine relative to HCs. Sensitivity analysis and subgroup analysis verified this result to be robust. Metaregression analyses revealed that this CBMA result was not confounded by age, gender, aura, attack frequency per month, and illness duration. Our CBMA adds to the evidence of the replication crisis in neuroimaging research that is increasingly recognized. Many potential confounders, such as underpowered sample size, heterogeneous patient selection criteria, and differences in imaging collection and methodology, may contribute to the inconsistencies of CTh alterations in migraine, which merit attention before planning future research on this topic.

Gray Matter Volume Abnormality in Chronic Pain Patients With Depressive Symptoms: A Systemic Review and Meta-Analysis of Voxel-Based Morphometry Studies

“…A meta-analysis of GMV differences between CP-D and HCs was conducted with the seed-based d mapping (SDM) software package (version 5.15) in a standard process ( Radua et al, 2012 , 2014 ). The SDM approach used effect sizes to combine reported peak coordinates extracted from databases with statistical parametric maps, and it recreated original maps of the effect size of GMV difference between patients and HCs ( Chen et al, 2020 ; Sheng et al, 2020 , 2021 ). The SDM process was briefly described as follows: First, extracted peak coordinates and effect size (e.g., t -values and z -score) of differences in GMV between CP-D and HCs from each dataset and the z -score could be changed to t -values with the online tool on SDM website 1 ( Aoki and Inokuchi, 2016 ; Aoki et al, 2017 ); a standard MNI map of the GMV differences was then separately recreated for each dataset using an anisotropic Gaussian kernel.…”

Spontaneous brain activity abnormalities in migraine: A meta‐analysis of functional neuroimaging

“…Neuroimaging meta‐analysis method enables unbiased synthesis of results from numerous studies. Early neuroimaging meta‐analyses in migraine mostly summarized brain morphological alterations (Masson et al, 2021 ; Sheng et al, 2020 ; Wang, Wang, et al, 2020 ). To our knowledge, there has not yet been a quantitative meta‐analysis targeting the resting‐state local dysfunction of specialized brain regions in migraineurs.…”

Evaluating migraine with typical aura with neuroimaging

“…Another study suggested other deep brain nuclei differences in the putamen and globus pallidus in migraine with aura ( Petrusic et al, 2019a ), with reduced volumes but larger brainstem volumes in migraine with aura compared to healthy controls ( Petrusic et al, 2019b ), suggesting that deep subcortical brain nuclei and brainstem structures may be altered in migraine with aura. The influence of disease activity, that is underlying headache frequency and disease duration, on structural imaging findings in migraine is unclear as various studies have reported conflicting findings ( Sheng et al, 2020 , 2021 ).…”