Department of Urology, Huashan Hospital, Fudan University, 12 Central Urumqi Rd, Shanghai 200040, China.
Department of Urology, Jing'an District Center Hospital of Shanghai, 259 Xikang Rd, Shanghai 200040, China.
Neural Plast. 2021 May 7;2021:6690414. doi: 10.1155/2021/6690414. eCollection 2021.
Chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome (CP/CPPS) is one of the most common diseases in urology, but its pathogenesis remains unclear. As a kind of chronic pain which the patients suffered for more than 3 months, we investigated the influence on patients' brain functional connectivity in resting state.
We recruited a cohort of 18 right-handed male patients with CP/CPPS and 21 healthy male right-handed age-matched controls. Their resting-state fMRI data and structural MRI data were preprocessed and processed by RESTPlus V1.22. To assess the integrity of the default mode network (DMN), we utilized the voxel-wised analysis that we set medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and posterior cingulate gyrus (PCC) as seed points to compare the global functional connectivity (FC) strength.
Compared with healthy control, the FC strength between left mPFC and posterior DMN decreased in the group of CP/CPPS ( < 0.05, GFR correction, voxel < 0.01, cluster < 0.05), and the FC strength between the left anterior cerebellar lobe and posterior DMN increased ( < 0.05, GFR correction, voxel < 0.01, cluster < 0.05). In the patient group, there was a positive correlation between the increased FC strength and the score of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) anxiety subscale ( = 0.5509, = 0.0178) in the left anterior cerebellar lobe, a negative correlation between the decreased FC strength and the score of the National Institutes of Health Chronic Prostatitis Symptom Index ( = -0.6281, = 0.0053) in the area of left mPFC, and a negative correlation between the decreased FC strength and the score of HADS anxiety subscale ( = -0.5252, = 0.0252).
Patients with CP/CPPS had alterations in brain function, which consisted of the default mode network's compromised integrity. These alterations might play a crucial role in the pathogenesis and development of CP/CPPS.
慢性前列腺炎/慢性盆腔疼痛综合征（CP/CPPS）是泌尿科最常见的疾病之一，但发病机制尚不清楚。CP/CPPS 是一种患者遭受超过 3 个月的慢性疼痛，我们研究了静息状态下对患者大脑功能连接的影响。
我们招募了 18 名右利手 CP/CPPS 男性患者和 21 名健康的右利手年龄匹配的男性对照者。对他们的静息态 fMRI 数据和结构 MRI 数据进行预处理和 RESTPlus V1.22 处理。为了评估默认模式网络（DMN）的完整性，我们利用基于体素的分析，以内侧前额叶（mPFC）和后扣带回（PCC）为种子点，比较全局功能连接（FC）强度。
与健康对照组相比，CP/CPPS 组左 mPFC 与后 DMN 之间的 FC 强度降低（ < 0.05，GFR 校正，体素 < 0.01，簇 < 0.05），左小脑前叶与后 DMN 之间的 FC 强度增加（ < 0.05，GFR 校正，体素 < 0.01，簇 < 0.05）。在患者组中，左小脑前叶 FC 强度增加与医院焦虑抑郁量表（HADS）焦虑分量表评分呈正相关（ = 0.5509， = 0.0178），左 mPFC 区域 FC 强度降低与 NIH 慢性前列腺炎症状指数（NIH-CPSI）评分呈负相关（ = -0.6281， = 0.0053），左 mPFC 区域 FC 强度降低与 HADS 焦虑分量表评分呈负相关（ = -0.5252， = 0.0252）。
CP/CPPS 患者存在大脑功能改变，包括默认模式网络完整性受损。这些改变可能在 CP/CPPS 的发病机制和发展中起关键作用。
