초록 열기/닫기 버튼
Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) is a chronic neuropathic pain disorder. Pain catastrophizing, characterized by magnification, rumination,and helplessness, increases perceived pain intensity and mental distress in CRPS patients. As functional connectivity patterns in CRPS remainlargely unknown, we aimed to investigate functional connectivity alterations in CRPS patients and their association with pain catastrophizing usinga whole-brain analysis approach. Twenty-one patients with CRPS and 49 healthy controls were included in the study for clinical assessment andresting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging. Between-group differences in whole-brain functional connectivity were examined througha Network-based Statistics analysis. Associations between altered functional connectivity and the extent of pain catastrophizing were also assessedin CRPS patients. Relative to healthy controls, CRPS patients showed higher levels of functional connectivity in the bilateral somatosensory subnetworks(components 1~2), but lower functional connectivity within the prefronto-posterior cingulate (component 3), prefrontal (component 4),prefronto-parietal (component 5), and thalamo-anterior cingulate (component 6) subnetworks (p<0.05, family-wise error corrected). Higher levelsof functional connectivity in components 1~2 (β=0.45, p=0.04) and lower levels of functional connectivity in components 3~6 (β=-0.49, p=0.047)were significantly correlated with higher levels of pain catastrophizing in CRPS patients. Higher functional connectivity in the somatosensorysubnetworks implicating exaggerated pain perception and lower functional connectivity in the prefronto-parieto-cingulo-thalamic subnetworksindicating impaired cognitive-affective pain processing may underlie pain catastrophizing in CRPS.
