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MONDAY, Sept. 17, 2018 (HealthDay News) — Centralized pain pathways may coexist with more established peripheral inflammation-driven pathways in some patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), according to a study published in the July issue of Arthritis & Rheumatology<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Neil Basu, M.D., Ph.D., from the University of Aberdeen in the United Kingdom, and colleagues performed an 11-minute functional connectivity magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain scan and a clinical evaluation, which included a measure of “fibromyalgianess” (FMness), on 54 patients (75.9 percent women) with RA. From MRI data, brain networks were isolated from functional connectivity. Then, individual patient network-to-whole-brain connectivity analyses were conducted, followed by group-level regression. This correlated the connectivity of each network with FMness, a continuous measure of the degree of fibromyalgia.<\/p>\n
The participants had a mean FMness score of 13.2 (range, 1 to 29) and, using whole-brain analyses, the researchers found a single significant positive correlation between default mode network connectivity to the left mid\/posterior insula and FMness. The investigators note that RA patients with increased levels of FMness seem to share neurobiologic features consistently observed in fibromyalgia patients.<\/p>\n
“This study is the first to provide neuroimaging evidence that RA is a mixed pain state, with many patients’ symptoms being related to the central nervous system rather than to classic inflammatory mechanisms,” the authors write.<\/p>\n
Several authors disclosed financial ties to pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer, which funded the study.<\/p>\n