Abnormal structure and functional connectivity of the anterior insula at pain-free periovulation is associated with perceived pain during menstruation

Neuroimaging studies have demonstrated the critical role of the insula in pain pathways and its close relation with the perceived intensity of nociceptive stimuli. We aimed to identify the structural and functional characteristics of the insula during periovulatory phase in women with primary dysmen...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Brain imaging and behavior 2017-12, Vol.11 (6), p.1787-1795
Main Authors: Dun, Wang-huan, Yang, Jing, Yang, Ling, Ding, Dun, Ma, Xue-ying, Liang, Feng-Li, von Deneen, Karen M., Ma, Shao-hui, Xu, Xiao-ling, Liu, Jixin, Zhang, Ming
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Attention
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Biomedicine
Brain Mapping
Cerebral Cortex - diagnostic imaging
Cerebral Cortex - pathology
Cerebral Cortex - physiopathology
Correlation analysis
Dysmenorrhea - diagnostic imaging
Dysmenorrhea - pathology
Dysmenorrhea - physiopathology
Female
Functional magnetic resonance imaging
Humans
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Medical imaging
Menstruation
Menstruation - physiology
Morphometry
Neural networks
Neural Pathways - diagnostic imaging
Neural Pathways - pathology
Neural Pathways - physiopathology
Neuroimaging
Neurology
Neuropsychology
Neuroradiology
Neurosciences
Original Research
Ovulation
Ovulation - physiology
Pain
Pain perception
Pain Perception - physiology
Patients
Perception
Perceptions
Prefrontal cortex
Prospective Studies
Psychiatry
Rest
Structure-function relationships
Substantia grisea
Visual cortex
Young Adult
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Neuroimaging studies have demonstrated the critical role of the insula in pain pathways and its close relation with the perceived intensity of nociceptive stimuli. We aimed to identify the structural and functional characteristics of the insula during periovulatory phase in women with primary dysmenorrhea (PDM), and further investigate its association with the intensity of perceived pain during menstruation. Optimized voxel-based morphometry and functional connectivity (FC) analyses were applied by using 3-dimensional T1-weighted and resting functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in 36 patients at the peri-ovulation phase and 29 age-, education-, and gender-matched healthy controls (HC). A visual analogue scale (VAS) was used to examine the intensity of the abdominal pain at periovulation and menstruation. In our results, PDM patients had significant higher VAS-rating during menstruaion than periovulation. Compared with the HC, PDM patients had lower gray matter density in the left anterior insula (aINS). Taken the left aINS as a seed region, we further found hypoconnectivity between aINS and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), which showed negative relation with the VAS during menstruation. As the aINS is a key site of the salience network (SN) and the mPFC is a critical region in the default mode network (DMN), it’s implicated a trait-related central-alteration that communications between pain attention and perception networks were disrupted without the ongoing menstrual pain. Moreover, result of correlation analysis, at least in part, suggested a possible role of altered FC (pain-free period) in predicting pain perception (menstruation).
ISSN:1931-7557
1931-7565
DOI:10.1007/s11682-016-9646-y