Neurophysiological Effects of the Anterior Cingulate Cortex on the Exacerbation of Crohn’s Disease: A Combined fMRI-MRS Study

• DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2022.840149
• Publication Date: 2022-05-06T04:54:25Z
• Authors: Ning Kong; Chen Gao; Fan Zhang; Meng Zhang; Juan Yue; Kun Lv; Qi Zhang; Yihong Fan; Bin Lv; Yufeng Zang; Maosheng Xu
• Keywords: Crohn’s disease; anterior cingulate cortex; brain-gut axis; 03 medical and health sciences; 0302 clinical medicine; Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry; functional magnetic resonance imaging; magnetic resonance spectroscopy; RC321-571; Neuroscience; 3. Good health

Background Crohn’s disease (CD) is characterized by repetitive phases of remission and exacerbation, the quality life patients with CD strongly influenced activity, as in active phase experience significantly worse symptoms. To investigate underlying mechanism how course exacerbated based on bi-directionality brain-gut axis (BGA), we conducted a multi-modality neuroimaging study that combined resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) proton spectroscopy (MRS) to detect abnormalities anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Materials Methods Clinical scales including Visual Analog Scale (VAS) Hospital Anxiety Depression (HADS) were used evaluate degree abdominal pain mood state participants. We made comparison between phase, healthy controls (HCs), not only employed innovative wavelet-transform analyze amplitude low frequency fluctuation (ALFF) but also compared sensitivity traditional fast Fourier transform (FFT). Brain metabolites such glutamate (Glu), myo-inositol (mIns) gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) detected. Then correlation analysis was see whether changes ACC correlated CD’s clinical Results showed higher VAS scores ( p = 0.025), anxiety depression (all < 0.05). Wavelet-transform slightly more sensitive current research. Patients exhibited ALFF left superior frontal gyrus, medial (SFGmed). increased Glu levels than or HCs 0.039 0.034 respectively) lower mIns 0.036). There positive mWavelet-ALFF values HADS-depression r 0.462, 0.006). Besides, concentrations positively all participants 0.367, Conclusion Abnormal spontaneous activity metabolic detected along severer state, these may contribute exacerbation CD. Therefore, might be potential neural alternative for managing