Yu Tang1, Maohua Wang2, Ting Zheng1, Fengying Yuan1, Fugang Han1, and Guangxiang Chen1
1Department of Radiology, The Affiliated Hospital of Southwest Medical University, Luzhou, China, 2Department of Anesthesiology, The Affiliated Hospital of Southwest Medical University, Luzhou, China
Synopsis
In recent decades, a growing number of structural neuroimaging studies of grey matter (GM) in
trigeminal neuralgia (TN) have
reported inconsistent alterations.
We carried out a systematic review and meta-analysis to
identify consistent and replicable GM volume abnormalities in TN patients. Our
findings provide a thorough profile of GM volume alterations in TN patients and constitute robust evidence that aberrant GM volumes in the
brain regions regulating and moderating sensory-motor and affective processing
may play an important role in the pathophysiology of TN.
Synopsis
In recent decades, a growing
number of structural neuroimaging studies
of grey matter (GM) in trigeminal neuralgia (TN) have reported inconsistent
alterations. We carried out
a systematic
review and meta-analysis to identify consistent and replicable GM
volume abnormalities in TN patients. Our findings provide a
thorough profile of GM volume alterations in TN patients and
constitute robust evidence that aberrant GM volumes in the brain regions
regulating and moderating sensory-motor and affective processing may play an
important role in the pathophysiology of TN.Purpose
To identify consistent and replicable GM volume
abnormalities and explore the potential moderators between clinical
characteristics and GM volume alterations in TN patients.Methods
A systematic search was conducted for the relevant studies with
voxel-wise analysis of the GM volume alterations in TN patients. Effect-size signed differential
mapping (ES-SDM) was applied to analyse the GM volume differences between TN patients and healthy controls.
Meta-regression analysis was used to explore the effects of clinical
characteristics on GM volume alterations in TN patients.Results
A total of 13 studies with 15 datasets, representing 407 TN patients and
376 healthy individuals, were included in the present study. The results
revealed that TN patients had GM volume abnormalities mainly in the basal
ganglia, including the putamen, nucleus accumbens (NAc), caudate nucleus and amygdala,
as well as the cingulate cortex (CC), thalamus, insula and superior temporal
gyrus (STG) , as shown in Fig. 1. Whole-brain jack-knife sensitivity analysis demonstrated that the loss of GM volume in the left lenticular nucleus in TN patients was highly repeatable, which was
present in all datasets. The right superior longitudinal fasciculus
remained significant in all but one combination of
the datasets. The results in the right amygdala and left thalamus remained significant in all
but two combinations.
The meta-regression analysis showed that GM volume reductions
in the left STG and insula were negatively
correlated with the illness duration of
the TN patients, as shown in Figs. 2 and 3. GM volume
reductions in the left striatum were negatively correlated with the VRS scores, as shown in Fig. 4. Discussion
Emerging evidence has demonstrated
that alterations in brain structure may be related to the pathophysiology of
TN. However, the cerebral changes associated with TN are not yet fully
understood1. Previous structural
neuroimaging studies of GM in TN
have reported inconsistent alterations2-6.
Therefore, a systematic review and meta-analysis is emergently
needed to identify the most prominent and consistent GM volume abnormalities
and generate new insights into the pathophysiology of TN. Our findings revealed
GM volume abnormalities located in the basal ganglia, CC, thalamus, insula and STG
in patients with TN. Additionally, our study found that GM volume abnormalities in the left striatum,
STG and insula may
be potential neurobiological markers of the symptom ratings and illness
duration of the disease.Conclusion
These results provide a thorough profile
of GM volume alterations in TN
patients and robust evidence that
aberrant GM volumes in the brain regions regulating and moderating
sensory-motor processing and affective processing may play an important role in
the pathophysiology of TN.Acknowledgements
No
acknowledgementsReferences
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