Mental Health Center Affiliated to Shanghai University School of Medicine, 99 Shangda Road, Shanghai 200444, China; Medical School, Shanghai University, 99 Shangda Road, Shanghai 200444, China.
Mental Health Center Affiliated to Shanghai University School of Medicine, 99 Shangda Road, Shanghai 200444, China; Medical School, Shanghai University, 99 Shangda Road, Shanghai 200444, China; School of Mechatronic Engineering and Automation, Shanghai University, 99 Shangda Road, Shanghai 200444, China; Clinical Research Center for Mental Health, School of Medicine, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200083, China.
Behav Brain Res. 2025 Feb 4;477:115319. doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2024.115319. Epub 2024 Oct 30.
In 2019, the International Association for the Study of Pain introduced the concept of 'chronic primary pain (CPP)', characterized by persistent non-organic pain with emotional and functional abnormalities. Underdiagnosed and linked to depression, CPP has poorly understood neural characteristics. Electroencephalogram (EEG) microstates enable detailed examination of brain network dynamics at the millisecond level. Incorporating task-related EEG features offers a comprehensive neurophysiological signature of brain dysfunction, facilitating exploration of potential neural mechanisms.
This study employed resting-state and task-related auditory Oddball EEG paradigm to evaluate 20 healthy controls, 20 patients with depression, and 20 patients with CPP. An 8-minute recording of resting-state EEG was conducted to identify four typical microstates (A-D). Additionally, power spectral density (PSD) features were examined during an auditory Oddball paradigm.
Both CPP and Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) patients exhibited reduced occurrence rate and transition probabilities of other microstates to microstate C during resting-state EEG. Furthermore, more pronounced increase in Gamma PSD was observed in the occipital region of CPP during the Oddball task. In CPP, both resting-state microstate C and task-related Gamma PSD correlated with pain and emotional indicators. Notably, microstate C occurrence positively correlated with occipital Gamma PSD in MDD.
Conclusively, both CPP and MDD display dynamic abnormalities within the salient network, closely associated with pain and depressive symptoms in CPP. Unlike MDD, CPPs' dynamic network changes appear unrelated to perceptual integration function, indicating differing microstate functional impacts. Combining resting-state microstates and Oddball tasks may offer a promising avenue for identifying potential biomarkers in objectively assessing chronic primary pain.
2019 年，国际疼痛研究协会引入了“慢性原发性疼痛（CPP）”的概念，其特征是持续存在的非器质性疼痛伴情绪和功能异常。CPP 诊断不足且与抑郁症相关，其神经特征尚未被充分了解。脑电图（EEG）微状态能够在毫秒级水平上对脑网络动态进行详细检查。纳入任务相关的 EEG 特征可以提供大脑功能障碍的综合神经生理特征，有助于探索潜在的神经机制。
本研究采用静息态和任务相关听觉Oddball EEG 范式，评估了 20 名健康对照者、20 名抑郁症患者和 20 名 CPP 患者。进行了 8 分钟的静息态 EEG 记录，以识别四个典型的微状态（A-D）。此外，在听觉 Oddball 范式期间检查了功率谱密度（PSD）特征。
CPP 和重性抑郁障碍（MDD）患者在静息态 EEG 中均表现出其他微状态向微状态 C 的出现率和转移概率降低。此外，在 Oddball 任务中，CPP 患者的枕区 PSD 显著增加。在 CPP 中，静息态微状态 C 和任务相关的伽马 PSD 均与疼痛和情绪指标相关。值得注意的是，MDD 中微状态 C 的出现与枕部伽马 PSD 呈正相关。
总之，CPP 和 MDD 均表现出显著网络内的动态异常，与 CPP 中的疼痛和抑郁症状密切相关。与 MDD 不同，CPP 的动态网络变化似乎与感知整合功能无关，表明微状态功能影响不同。结合静息态微状态和 Oddball 任务可能为客观评估慢性原发性疼痛提供潜在的生物标志物识别提供有前途的途径。
