Gout Is Not Just Arthritis: Abnormal Cortical Thickness and Structural Covariance Networks in Gout

Abstract

Background: Hyperuricemia is the cause of gout. The antioxidant and neuroprotective effects of uric acid seem to benefit some patients with central nervous system injury. However, changes in the brain structure have not been discovered in patients with gout.Object: Clarify the changes in cortical thickness in patients with gout and the alteration of the structural covariance networks (SCNs) based on cortical thickness.Methods: We collected structural MRIs of 23 male gout patients and 23 age-matched healthy controls. After calculating and comparing the difference in cortical thickness between the two groups, we constructed and analyzed the cortical thickness covariance networks of the two groups, and we investigated for any changes in SCNs of gout patients.Results: Gout patients have thicker cortices in the left postcentral, left supramarginal, right medial temporal, and right medial orbitofrontal regions; and thinner cortices were found in the left insula, left superior frontal, right pericalcarine, and right precentral regions. In SCN analysis, between-group differences in global network measures showed that gout patients have a higher global efficiency. In regional network measures, more nodes in gout patients have increased centrality. In network hub analysis, we found that the transfer of the core hub area, rather than the change in number, may be the characteristic of the gout's cortical thickness covariance network.Conclusion: This is the first study on changes in brain cortical thickness and SCN based on graph theory in patients with gout. The present study found that, compared with healthy controls, gout patients show regional cortical thinning or thickening, and variation in the properties of the cortical thickness covariance network also changed. These alterations may be the combined effect of disease damage and physiological compensation. More research is needed to fully understand the complex underlying mechanisms of gout brain variation.

Serum Uric Acid Levels in Parkinson’s Disease: A Cross-Sectional Electronic Medical Record Database Study from a Tertiary Referral Centre in Romania

“…Serum UA levels above the upper reference range (i.e., hyperuricemia) are associated with gout [16], arterial hypertension [17,18], and metabolic syndrome [19], among others, and have a potentially negative impact on cortical thickness [16] and on the cerebrovascular status [20]. There is epidemiological evidence that lower levels of serum UA and U are associated with an increased risk of PD; this was shown in two large prospective studies [21,22], four case-control studies [23][24][25][26], and a cross-sectional study [27].…”

Bidirectional Mendelian randomization explores the causal relationship between arthritis and cerebral cortical volume

“…In a Mendelian randomization study of gout and brain volume, researchers found that genetically predicted gout was signi cantly associated with gray matter volume in the whole brain, and genetically predicted hyperuricemia was also signi cantly correlated with gray matter volume in several regions, including the cerebellum, midbrain, pons, and brainstem [32] . Compared with this previous study, our study provides a more detailed delineation of brain regions, further revealing the correlation between gout and the more subtle brain regions of the Left Frontal Operculum Cortex and Left Precentral Gyrus.Furthermore,Yang et al, in an imaging study using MRI technology to detect cortical volume in gout patients, found that the cortical thickness in the left upper frontal lobe region of gout patients was thinner than that of the healthy control group [33] . This nding is similar to the genetic prediction in our study that gout can cause a decrease in the volume of the Left Frontal Operculum Cortex.…”