Regional Homogeneity Alterations In Subjects With Discogenic Low Back Pain:A Resting-state FMRI Study

Objective: Regional homogeneity analysis of resting-state functional magnetic resonance(fMRI)was used to observe the changes of brain regional homogeneity in the resting state of the patients with discogenic low back pain.The correlation analysis between regional homogeneity value of the region of interest with the course of disease and the VAS score was analyzed.In order to further explore the central nervous mechanism of chronic discogenic low back pain.Methods: Resting-sate fMRI GE 3.0T scans were separately performed on 25 patients with discogenic low back pain and 20 age-and gender-matched healthy subjects.DPARSF 2.3 in the Matlab R2012 a operating environment were used for data preprocessing and processing.REST was applied for statistical analysis in Matlab R2012 a.A one-sample t-test(P < 0.05,Alphasim corrected)was performed for patients with discogenic low back pain and the healthy controls,then,a two-sample t-test(P < 0.05,Alphasim corrected)was performed to compare the differences between the two groups.Finally,analysis was performed to investigate the correlation of the ReHo values of the different brain regions in the case group with disease duration and visual analogue scale(VAS)scores.Results: Patients with discogenic low back pain showed a significant increase in ReHo values in the right dorsal lateral frontal gyrus,right medial frontal gyrus and orbital frontal gyrus,anterior cingulate gyrus,right Island lobe,right superior temporal gyrus,and left occipital gyrus,and a significant decrease in the right prefrontal cortex,posterior cingulate gyrus,left middle temporal gyrus,left occipital gyrus,bilateral cerebellar posterior lobe,right cerebellar tonsil,right posterior central gyrus,right lingual gyrus and fusiform gyrus(P < 0.05,Alphasim corrected),compared with healthy controls.In addition,we found that the increase ReHo of the right middle frontal gyrus in the DLBP group was negatively correlated with the patient’s course of disease(the correlation coefficient is-0.577,P<0.05).The ReHo values of the different brain regions in the case group were not significantly correlated with VAS scores.Conclusions: This study found that there are multiple brain regions with increased or decreased regional values in multiple brain regions in subjects with discogenic low back pain,including sensory,emotion,cognition,exercise,pain modulation,and the important distribution point of the default network.It is suggested that the abnormal network function in the brain of discogenic low back pain patients may cause the body to reduce the processing integration of pain related feelings and memory information.And the discogenic chronic pain may be closely related to the increase of negative emotion and the imbalance of pain regulation.It is also found that the increase of ReHo in right middle frontal gyrus is negatively correlated with the course of disease,but whether the Re Ho change in the brain area can be used as a marker for judging the duration of disease is still needed to be further studied.