Esteves Inês, Fouto Ana R, Ruiz-Tagle Amparo, Caetano Gina, Nunes Rita G, da Silva Nuno A, Vilela Pedro, Martins Isabel Pavão, Gil-Gouveia Raquel, Caballero-Gaudes César, Figueiredo Patrícia
ISR-Lisboa/LARSyS and Department of Bioengineering, Instituto Superior Técnico - Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal.
Hospital da Luz Learning Health, Luz Saúde, Lisbon, Portugal.
J Headache Pain. 2025 Feb 10;26(1):29. doi: 10.1186/s10194-025-01969-6.
Changes in large-scale brain networks have been reported in migraine patients, but it remains unclear how these manifest in the various phases of the migraine cycle. Case-control fMRI studies spanning the entire migraine cycle are lacking, precluding a complete assessment of brain functional connectivity in migraine. Such studies are essential for understanding the inherent changes in the brain of migraine patients as well as transient changes along the cycle. Here, we leverage the concept of functional connectome (FC) fingerprinting, whereby individual subjects may be identified based on their FC, to investigate changes in FC and its stability across different phases of the migraine cycle.
We employ a case-control longitudinal design to study a group of 10 patients with episodic menstrual or menstrual-related migraine without aura, in the 4 phases of their spontaneous migraine cycle (preictal, ictal, postictal, interictal), and a group of 14 healthy controls in corresponding phases of the menstrual cycle, using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We propose a novel multilevel clinical connectome fingerprinting approach to analyse the FC identifiability not only within-subject, but also within-session and within-group.
This approach allowed us to obtain individual FC fingerprints by reconstructing the data using the first 19 principal components to maximize identifiability at all levels. We found decreased FC identifiability for patients in the preictal phase relative to controls, which increased with the progression of the attack and became comparable to controls in the interictal phase. Using Network-Based Statistic analysis, we found increased FC strength across several brain networks for patients in the ictal and postictal phases relative to controls.
Our novel multilevel clinical connectome fingerprinting approach captured FC variations along the migraine cycle in a case-control longitudinal study, bringing new insights into the cyclic nature of the disorder.
已有报道称偏头痛患者存在大规模脑网络变化，但这些变化在偏头痛周期的各个阶段如何表现尚不清楚。缺乏跨越整个偏头痛周期的病例对照功能磁共振成像（fMRI）研究，这使得无法全面评估偏头痛患者的脑功能连接性。此类研究对于理解偏头痛患者大脑的固有变化以及周期中的短暂变化至关重要。在此，我们利用功能连接组（FC）指纹识别的概念，即可以根据个体的FC识别个体，来研究FC在偏头痛周期不同阶段的变化及其稳定性。
我们采用病例对照纵向设计，使用静息态功能磁共振成像（fMRI），研究一组10例发作性月经性或月经相关性无先兆偏头痛患者在其自发偏头痛周期的4个阶段（发作前期、发作期、发作后期、发作间期），以及一组14名健康对照者在月经周期相应阶段的情况。我们提出了一种新颖的多级临床连接组指纹识别方法，不仅可以分析个体内部、还可以分析会话内部和组内的FC可识别性。
这种方法使我们能够通过使用前19个主成分重建数据来获得个体FC指纹，以在所有层面上最大化可识别性。我们发现，与对照组相比，发作前期患者的FC可识别性降低，随着发作进展而增加，在发作间期与对照组相当。使用基于网络的统计分析，我们发现与对照组相比，发作期和发作后期患者的几个脑网络的FC强度增加。
在一项病例对照纵向研究中，我们新颖的多级临床连接组指纹识别方法捕捉到了偏头痛周期中FC的变化，为该疾病的周期性本质带来了新的见解。
