Resting-state fMRI study of acute migraine treatment with kinetic oscillation stimulation in nasal cavity

Abstract

Kinetic oscillatory stimulation (KOS) in the nasal cavity is a non-invasive cranial nerve stimulation method with promising efficacy for acute migraine and other inflammatory disorders. For a better understanding of the underlying neurophysiological mechanisms of KOS treatment, we conducted a resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study of 10 acute migraine patients and 10 normal control subjects during KOS treatment in a 3 T clinical MRI scanner. The fMRI data were first processed using a group independent component analysis (ICA) method and then further analyzed with a voxel-wise 3-way ANOVA modeling and region of interest (ROI) of functional connectivity metrics.All migraine participants were relieved from their acute migraine symptoms after 10–20 min KOS treatment and remained migraine free for 3–6 months. The resting-state fMRI result indicates that migraine patients have altered intrinsic functional activity in the anterior cingulate, inferior frontal gyrus and middle/superior temporal gyrus. KOS treatment gave rise to up-regulated intrinsic functional activity for migraine patients in a number of brain regions involving the limbic and primary sensory systems, while down regulating temporally the activity for normal controls in a few brain areas, such as the right dorsal posterior insula and inferior frontal gyrus.The result of this study confirms the efficacy of KOS treatment for relieving acute migraine symptoms and reducing attack frequency. Resting-state fMRI measurements demonstrate that migraine is associated with aberrant intrinsic functional activity in the limbic and primary sensory systems. KOS in the nasal cavity gives rise to the adjustment of the intrinsic functional activity in the limbic and primary sensory networks and restores the physiological homeostasis in the autonomic nervous system.

Juvenile myoclonic epilepsy has hyper dynamic functional connectivity in the dorsolateral frontal cortex

“…Such transition of brain states has been confirmed in both animal models and humans ( Majeed et al, 2011 ). Dynamic functional connectivity analysis has shown that the spontaneous transitions between networks of interacting brain areas are highly organized into a hierarchy of two types of metastates: one for higher order cognition, and the other for the sensorimotor systems ( Li et al, 2016 ). The transitions are more probable within, than between, metastates.…”

“…However, it remains largely unclear whether deficiency is present in the dynamic interactions between RFNs or between brain areas within a given RFN. In this study, we incorporated sliding window analysis of time-varying connectivity hierarchy (SWATCH) into previously developed quantitative data-driven analysis framework ( Li et al, 2016 ; Nordin et al, 2016 ) to assess functional connectivity both in the entire data acquisition period (assumed stationary) and a 2-min sliding window in a voxel-wise fashion. With the SWATCH analysis, we can derive two types of functional connectivity metrics, namely the functional connectivity strength index (CSI) and connectivity count index (CCI) as well as the temporal means of their sliding-window time series from the acquired resting-state fMRI data.…”

Effects of intranasal kinetic oscillation stimulation on heart rate variability

“…It should be acknowledged that the mechanism leading to the beneficial effects seen in these relatively small studies with KOS is not well understood, but indirect effects on the autonomic nervous system may play a role (Li, Wang, Hallin, & Juto, ). It can be hypothesized that the pronounced reduction of HRV is either linked to an effect by KOS on breathing pattern or to a change in autonomic tone, through the so‐called trigemino‐cardiac reflex (Lemaitre, Chowdhury, & Schaller, ).…”

The cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway in chronic kidney disease—review and vagus nerve stimulation clinical pilot study

“…The VNS device we used had not previously been applied in a study focusing on inflammatory response. Thus it may not have been effective enough despite the HRV results in healthy volunteers and reported influence on autonomic nervous system activity when used in a study on migraines [ 130 ]. However, we did not record any significant changes in HRV in patients during this study.…”