The Value Of Resting State Functional Magnetic Resonance For Emotion Disorders In Patients With Chronic Discogenic Low Back Pain

Objective: To observe the functional alterations of brain emotional areas,and to investigate the correlation between the functional changes and the pain intensity or the disease duration for emotional disorders in patients with chronic discogenic low back pain(CLBP).Methods: 15 CLBP patients with emotional disorders as the study group(CLBP group)and 15 healthy volunteers as a contrast group(HC group)were enrolled in this study.Both two groups were imaged with resting state functional magnetic resonance in 3.0T MR scanner.The changes of Amplitude of low frequency fluctuation(ALFF)in the corresponded brain functional areas in CLBP group compared with HC group were observed.And the correlations between average value of ALFF and Visual Analogue Score(VAS)or disease duration were analyzed by Spearman’s correlation.Results:(1)Compared with the HC group,the significantly lower ALFF in bilateral insular cortex,left meidal prefrontal cortex,and posterior cingulate cortex(PCC)in CLBP groups were showed,P<0.05,K>40.And the higher ALFF values in left parahippocampal gyrus,right primary sensory/motor cortex(S1/M1),right superior temporal gyrus and bilateral inferior temporal gyrus were noted,P<0.05,K>40.(2)The significant correlation between the reduction of average value of ALFF in bilateral insular cortex and the VAS scores(R 0.647 in left insular cortex,and R 0.713 in right insular cortex,respectively)were showed,P<0.05.(3)The positivecorrelation were demonstrated between the decrease of the ALFF average value of bilateral insular cortex and the disease duration were demonstrated(R 0.674 in left insular cortex,and 0.617 in right insular cortex,respectively),P<0.05,as well as the positive correlation between the increase of the ALFF average value in left parahippocampal gyrus and the disease duration(R0.542)were observed,P<0.05.Conclusions: The average ALFF in the brain functional areas such as island lobe,frontal lobe,PCC and hippocampus were significantly reduced in CLBP patients with emotional disorders,which perhaps could be used as an imagingindicator for emotional disorders in patients with CLBP.The ALFF average of the bilateral Island lobes of CLBP patients perhaps could be used as an imagingindicator of the pain intensity for emotional disorders in patients with CLBP.The average ALFF value in bilateral insular cortex and left parahippocampal gyrus perhaps could be an estimate objective evidence of disease duration in CLPB patients with emotion disorders.