Resting-state abnormalities in functional connectivity of the default mode network in migraine: A meta-analysis

Abstract

Migraine—a disabling neurological disorder, imposes a tremendous burden on societies. To reduce the economic and health toll of the disease, insight into its pathophysiological mechanism is key to improving treatment and prevention. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) studies suggest abnormal functional connectivity (FC) within the default mode network (DMN) in migraine patients. This implies that DMN connectivity change may represent a biomarker for migraine. However, the FC abnormalities appear inconsistent which hinders our understanding of the potential neuropathology. Therefore, we performed a meta-analysis of the FC within the DMN in migraine patients in the resting state to identify the common FC abnormalities. With efficient search and selection strategies, nine studies (published before July, 2022) were retrieved, containing 204 migraine patients and 199 healthy subjects. We meta-analyzed the data using the Anisotropic Effect Size version of Signed Differential Mapping (AES-SDM) method. Compared with healthy subjects, migraine patients showed increased connectivity in the right calcarine gyrus, left inferior occipital gyrus, left postcentral gyrus, right cerebellum, right parahippocampal gyrus, and right posterior cingulate gyrus, while decreased connectivity in the right postcentral gyrus, left superior frontal gyrus, right superior occipital gyrus, right orbital inferior frontal gyrus, left middle occipital gyrus, left middle frontal gyrus and left inferior frontal gyrus. These results provide a new perspective for the study of the pathophysiology of migraine and facilitate a more targeted treatment of migraine in the future.

Patients with episodic migraine without aura have an increased rate of delayed discounting

“…This result emphasizes the importance of attentional processing of visual information and sensory neurocircuits for nondrug cues with reward properties in patients with migraines. Resting state functional magnetic resonance studies found that activity in the occipital lobe was significantly impaired in the patient group, and the activity intensity in the occipital lobe decreased significantly when patients processed visual stimulus information (Hu et al., 2023 ; Lee et al., 2023 ). These results may elucidate the pathology of gain and loss processing in patients with migraine.…”

Multilevel clinical fingerprinting: uncovering longitudinal changes in the functional connectome of the brain along the migraine cycle

“…Moreover, a recent study examined a large sample suffering from migraine with aura and did not find any resting state differences between patients and controls and the meta-analysis performed by (Chen et al, 2022) did not find consistent FC differences. Nevertheless, another recent meta-analysis focused only on the DMN found significant interictal differences compared to healthy controls (Hu et al, 2023). Considering the prevalence of menstrual-related migraine and the fact that most studies have considerably larger percentage of female participants, some inconsistencies may be due to inadequate control of hormonal factors.…”

NRAAF: A Framework for Comparative Analysis of fMRI Registration Algorithms and Their Impact on Resting-State Neuroimaging Accuracy

“…Particularly, this study focuses on Default Mode Networks (DMN) -critical brain networks that are most active during rest and are involved in self-referential and introspective ac-tivities. Their relevance spans across various neuropsychological disorders and cognitive functions, serving as a focal point in understanding the neural basis of these conditions and their potential therapeutic targets [4], [5]. DMNs are a subset of Resting-State Networks (RSNs).…”