Department of Medical Imaging, First Affiliated Hospital of Medical College, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China.
NMR Biomed. 2013 Jan;26(1):58-64. doi: 10.1002/nbm.2819. Epub 2012 Jun 7.
Migraine is a primary headache disorder characterized by recurrent attacks of throbbing pain associated with neurological, gastrointestinal and autonomic symptoms. Previous studies have detected structural deficits and functional impairments in migraine patients. However, researchers have failed to investigate the functional connectivity alterations of regions with structural deficits during the resting state. Twenty-one migraine patients without aura and 21 age- and gender-matched healthy controls participated in our study. Voxel-based morphometric (VBM) analysis and functional connectivity were employed to investigate the abnormal structural and resting-state properties, respectively, in migraine patients without aura. Relative to healthy comparison subjects, migraine patients showed significantly decreased gray matter volume in five brain regions: the left medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), right occipital lobe, cerebellum and brainstem. The gray matter volume of the dACC was correlated with the duration of disease in migraine patients, and thus we chose this region as the seeding area for resting-state analysis. We found that migraine patients showed increased functional connectivity between several regions and the left dACC, i.e. the bilateral middle temporal lobe, orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). Furthermore, the functional connectivity between the dACC and two regions (i.e. DLPFC and OFC) was correlated with the duration of disease in migraine patients. We suggest that frequent nociceptive input has modified the structural and functional patterns of the frontal cortex, and these changes may explain the functional impairments in migraine patients.
偏头痛是一种原发性头痛障碍，其特征是反复发作的搏动性疼痛，伴有神经、胃肠道和自主症状。以前的研究已经检测到偏头痛患者存在结构缺陷和功能障碍。然而，研究人员未能在静息状态下研究具有结构缺陷的区域的功能连接变化。我们的研究纳入了 21 名无先兆偏头痛患者和 21 名年龄和性别匹配的健康对照者。我们采用基于体素的形态测量学（VBM）分析和功能连接来分别研究无先兆偏头痛患者的异常结构和静息状态特征。与健康对照者相比，偏头痛患者在五个脑区的灰质体积明显减少：左侧内侧前额叶皮质（MPFC）、背侧前扣带皮质（dACC）、右侧枕叶、小脑和脑干。dACC 的灰质体积与偏头痛患者的病程呈正相关，因此我们选择该区域作为静息状态分析的种子区域。我们发现偏头痛患者与左侧 dACC 之间的几个区域的功能连接增加，即双侧颞中回、眶额皮质（OFC）和左侧背外侧前额叶皮质（DLPFC）。此外，dACC 与两个区域（即 DLPFC 和 OFC）之间的功能连接与偏头痛患者的病程呈正相关。我们认为，频繁的伤害性输入改变了额叶皮层的结构和功能模式，这些变化可能解释了偏头痛患者的功能障碍。
