Clemente Livio, La Rocca Marianna, Stramaglia Sebastiano, Marinazzo Daniele, Lombardi Raffaella, Lauria Giuseppe, de Tommaso Marina
Neurophysiopathology Unit, DiBRain Department Bari Aldo Moro University, Bari, Italy.
Physic Department, Bari Aldo Moro University, Bari, Italy.
Front Netw Physiol. 2025 Sep 1;5:1592518. doi: 10.3389/fnetp.2025.1592518. eCollection 2025.
We propose a novel application of higher-order information-theoretic measures to assess the temporal interaction information (TII) between laser-evoked potentials (LEPs) and individual pain ratings in healthy subjects and patients with fibromyalgia (FM) affected by small fiber pathology.
Seventy-nine FM patients, categorized into three groups based on skin biopsy findings (normal innervation n 19, proximal denervation n 53, and both proximal and distal denervation n 7), and 14 control subjects were studied. We used cluster-based permutation tests (p < 0.05) to identify significant clusters of TII between cortical components recorded using a 64-channel electroencephalography (EEG) system - with focus on the Cz electrode - and subjective pain ratings to quantify synergy or redundancy between the LEP signal time points and Visual Analog Scale (VAS).
Control subjects generally exhibited synergy clusters corresponding to N2 and P2 peaks, whereas patients with fibromyalgia (FM), particularly those with distal denervation, exhibited increased redundancy and decreased synergy.
Patients with FM and small fiber pathology exhibited an alteration in higher-order integration mechanisms due to a complex interaction between cortical processing of pain and denervation of nociceptive fibers.
These findings highlight the potential of TII in elucidating the complex interplay between peripheral nerve integrity and central sensitization in FM and other chronic pain disorders.
我们提出一种高阶信息论测量的新应用，以评估健康受试者以及受小纤维病变影响的纤维肌痛（FM）患者中激光诱发电位（LEP）与个体疼痛评分之间的时间交互信息（TII）。
研究了79名FM患者，根据皮肤活检结果分为三组（正常神经支配19例，近端去神经支配53例，近端和远端均去神经支配7例），以及14名对照受试者。我们使用基于聚类的置换检验（p < 0.05）来识别使用64通道脑电图（EEG）系统记录的皮质成分（重点是Cz电极）与主观疼痛评分之间TII的显著聚类，以量化LEP信号时间点与视觉模拟量表（VAS）之间的协同或冗余。
对照受试者通常表现出与N2和P2峰相对应的协同聚类，而纤维肌痛（FM）患者，特别是那些有远端去神经支配的患者，表现出冗余增加和协同减少。
由于疼痛的皮质处理与伤害性纤维的去神经支配之间的复杂相互作用，FM和小纤维病变患者表现出高阶整合机制的改变。
这些发现突出了TII在阐明FM和其他慢性疼痛疾病中外周神经完整性与中枢敏化之间复杂相互作用的潜力。
