Department of Radiology, Peking University First Hospital, Beijing, 100034, China.
Department of Anesthesiology, Peking University First Hospital, Beijing, 100034, China.
Sci China Life Sci. 2018 Nov;61(11):1420-1424. doi: 10.1007/s11427-017-9108-6. Epub 2018 Nov 2.
In this study, we aimed to investigate the functional network changes that occur in patients with lower back pain (LBP). We also investigated the link between LBP and the small-world properties of functional networks within the brain. Functional MRI (fMRI) was performed on 20 individuals with LBP and 17 age and gender-matched normal controls during the resting state. The severity of the pain in the individuals with LBP ranged from 5 to 8 on a 0-10 scale, with 0 indicating no pain. Network-based statistics were performed to investigate the differences between the brain networks of individuals with LBP and those of normal controls. Several small-world parameters of brain networks were calculated, including the clustering coefficient, characteristic path length, local efficiency, and global efficiency. These criteria reflect the overall network efficiency. The brain networks in the individuals with LBP due to herniation of a lumbar disc demonstrated a significantly longer characteristic path length as well as a lower clustering coefficient, global efficiency, and local efficiency compared to those in control subjects. We found that LBP patients tended to have unstable and inefficient brain networks when compared with healthy controls. In addition, LBP individuals showed significantly decreased functional connectivity in the anterior cingulate cortex, middle cingulate cortex, post cingulate cortex, inferior frontal gyrus, middle temporal gyrus, occipital gyrus, postcentral gyrus, precentral gyrus, supplementary motor area, thalamus, fusiform, caudate, and cerebellum. We believe that these regions may be involved in the pathophysiology of lower back pain.
在这项研究中，我们旨在探讨下腰痛（LBP）患者的功能网络变化。我们还探讨了 LBP 与大脑内功能网络的小世界属性之间的联系。在静息状态下，对 20 名 LBP 患者和 17 名年龄和性别匹配的正常对照者进行了功能磁共振成像（fMRI）检查。LBP 患者的疼痛程度在 0-10 分制上从 5 分到 8 分不等，其中 0 分表示没有疼痛。进行了基于网络的统计分析，以探讨 LBP 患者和正常对照组的大脑网络之间的差异。计算了几个大脑网络的小世界参数，包括聚类系数、特征路径长度、局部效率和全局效率。这些标准反映了整体网络效率。与对照组相比，由于腰椎间盘突出而患有 LBP 的患者的大脑网络特征路径长度明显更长，聚类系数、全局效率和局部效率更低。与健康对照组相比，我们发现 LBP 患者的大脑网络往往不稳定且效率较低。此外，LBP 患者在前扣带皮层、中扣带皮层、后扣带皮层、下额回、中颞回、枕叶、中央后回、中央前回、辅助运动区、丘脑、梭状回、尾状核和小脑的功能连接性显著降低。我们认为这些区域可能与下腰痛的病理生理学有关。
