Huaxi MR Research Center (HMRRC), Department of Radiology, Functional and Molecular Imaging Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.
Research Unit of Psychoradiology, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Chengdu, China.
CNS Neurosci Ther. 2021 Apr;27(4):439-448. doi: 10.1111/cns.13557. Epub 2020 Dec 28.
Over 90% of patients receiving orthodontic treatment experience clinically significant pain. However, little is known about the neural correlates of orthodontic pain and which has therefore been investigated in the present study of healthy subjects using an experimental paradigm.
Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI) was performed in 44 healthy subjects 24 hours after an elastic separator had been introduced between the first and the second molar on the right side of the lower jaw and in 49 age- and sex-matched healthy control (HC) subjects. A K-means clustering algorithm was used to identify functional gray matter (GM) and white matter (WM) resting-state networks, and differences in functional connectivity (FC) of GM and WM between the group of subjects with experimental orthodontic pain and HC were analyzed.
Twelve GM networks and 14 WM networks with high stability were identified. Compared with HC, subjects with orthodontic pain showed significantly increased FC between WM12, which includes posterior thalamic radiation and posterior cingulum bundle, and most GM networks. Besides, the WM12 network showed significant differences in FC with three GM-WM loops involving the default mode network, dorsal attention network, and salience network, respectively.
Orthodontic pain is shown to produce an alteration of FC in networks relevant to pain processing, which may be mediated by a WM network relevant to emotion perception and cognitive processing.
超过 90%接受正畸治疗的患者会经历明显的临床疼痛。然而，对于正畸疼痛的神经相关性知之甚少，因此本研究使用实验范式对健康受试者进行了研究。
在弹性分离器被置于右下颚第一和第二磨牙之间 24 小时后，对 44 名健康受试者和 49 名年龄和性别匹配的健康对照组（HC）受试者进行了静息态功能磁共振成像（rsfMRI）。使用 K-均值聚类算法来识别功能灰质（GM）和白质（WM）静息态网络，并分析实验组和 HC 组 GM 和 WM 的功能连接（FC）差异。
确定了 12 个 GM 网络和 14 个 WM 网络，具有较高的稳定性。与 HC 相比，正畸疼痛组 WM12 与大多数 GM 网络之间的 FC 显著增加，WM12 包括后丘脑辐射和后扣带束。此外，WM12 网络与涉及默认模式网络、背侧注意网络和突显网络的三个 GM-WM 环路的 FC 存在显著差异。
正畸疼痛导致与疼痛处理相关的网络的 FC 改变，这可能是由与情绪感知和认知处理相关的 WM 网络介导的。
