Altered habenular connectivity in chronic low back pain: An fMRI and machine learning study.

Autor: Mao CP; Department of Medical Imaging, Second Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China., Wu Y; School of Computer Science and Engineering, Xidian University, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China., Yang HJ; Department of Medical Imaging, Second Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China., Qin J; Department of Medical Imaging, Second Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China., Song QC; Department of Medical Imaging, Second Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China., Zhang B; Department of Medical Imaging, Second Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China., Zhou XQ; Department of Medical Imaging, Second Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China., Zhang L; School of Computer Science and Engineering, Xidian University, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China., Sun HH; Department of Medical Imaging, Second Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Human brain mapping [Hum Brain Mapp] 2023 Aug 01; Vol. 44 (11), pp. 4407-4421. Date of Electronic Publication: 2023 Jun 12.
DOI: 10.1002/hbm.26389
Abstrakt: The habenula has been implicated in the pathogenesis of pain and analgesia, while evidence concerning its function in chronic low back pain (cLBP) is sparse. This study aims to investigate the resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) and effective connectivity of the habenula in 52 patients with cLBP and 52 healthy controls (HCs) and assess the feasibility of distinguishing cLBP from HCs based on connectivity by machine learning methods. Our results indicated significantly enhanced rsFC of the habenula-left superior frontal cortex (SFC), habenula-right thalamus, and habenula-bilateral insular pathways as well as decreased rsFC of the habenula-pons pathway in cLBP patients compared to HCs. Dynamic causal modelling revealed significantly enhanced effective connectivity from the right thalamus to right habenula in cLBP patients compared with HCs. RsFC of the habenula-SFC was positively correlated with pain intensities and Hamilton Depression scores in the cLBP group. RsFC of the habenula-right insula was negatively correlated with pain duration in the cLBP group. Additionally, the combination of the rsFC of the habenula-SFC, habenula-thalamus, and habenula-pons pathways could reliably distinguish cLBP patients from HCs with an accuracy of 75.9% by support vector machine, which was validated in an independent cohort (N = 68, accuracy = 68.8%, p = .001). Linear regression and random forest could also distinguish cLBP and HCs in the independent cohort (accuracy = 73.9 and 55.9%, respectively). Overall, these findings provide evidence that cLBP may be associated with abnormal rsFC and effective connectivity of the habenula, and highlight the promise of machine learning in chronic pain discrimination.
(© 2023 The Authors. Human Brain Mapping published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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