Purpose

To explore the functional connectivity (FC) between the bilateral thalamus and the other brain regions in patients with vestibular migraine (VM).

Methods

Resting-state fMRI and 3D-T1 data were collected from 37 patients with VM during the interictal period and 44 age-, gender-, and years of education-matched healthy controls (HC). The FC of the bilateral thalamus was analyzed using a standard seed-based whole-brain correlation method. Furthermore, the correlations between thalamus FC and clinical characteristics of patients were investigated using Pearson’s partial correlation.

Results

Compared with HC, VM patients showed decreased FC between the left thalamus and the left anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), bilateral insular and right supplementary motor cortex. We also observed decreased FC between the right thalamus and the left insular and ACC in VM patients. Furthermore, patients with VM also exhibited increased FC between the left thalamus and the right precuneus and middle frontal gyrus, between the right thalamus and superior parietal lobule. FC between the right thalamus and the left insular was negatively correlated with disease duration (p = 0.019, r = − 0.399), FC between the left thalamus and the left ACC was negatively correlated with HIT-6 score (p = 0.004, r = − 0.484).

Conclusion

VM patients showed altered FC between thalamus and brain regions involved in pain, vestibular and visual processing, which are associated with specific clinical features. Specifically, VM patients showed reduced thalamo-pain and thallamo-vestibular pathways, while exhibited enhanced thalamo-visual pathway, which provided first insight into the underlying functional brain connectivity in VM patients.

中文翻译：

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前庭偏头痛患者丘脑-皮质功能连接的改变：静息态 fMRI 研究

目的

探讨前庭偏头痛 (VM) 患者双侧丘脑与其他大脑区域之间的功能连接 (FC)。

方法

静息态 fMRI 和 3D-T1 数据是从 37 名发作间期 VM 患者和 44 名年龄、性别和受教育年限匹配的健康对照 (HC) 中收集的。使用标准的基于种子的全脑相关方法分析双侧丘脑的 FC。此外，使用 Pearson 偏相关研究了丘脑 FC 与患者临床特征之间的相关性。

结果

与 HC 相比，VM 患者的左丘脑和左前扣带回皮层 (ACC)、双侧岛叶和右辅助运动皮层之间的 FC 减少。我们还观察到 VM 患者右侧丘脑与左侧岛叶和 ACC 之间的 FC 降低。此外，VM 患者还表现出左侧丘脑和右侧楔前叶和额中回之间、右侧丘脑和顶上小叶之间的 FC 增加。右侧丘脑和左侧岛叶之间的 FC 与病程呈负相关（p  = 0.019，r = − 0.399），左侧丘脑和左侧 ACC 之间的 FC 与 HIT-6 评分呈负相关（p  = 0.004，r = - 0.484）。

结论

VM 患者表现出丘脑和大脑区域之间 FC 的改变，这些区域涉及疼痛、前庭和视觉处理，这与特定的临床特征相关。具体而言，VM 患者的丘脑疼痛和丘脑-前庭通路减少，而丘脑-视觉通路增强，这为了解 VM 患者的潜在功能性大脑连接提供了初步见解。