Systemic sclerosis & Raynaud's
Brain functional alternation in patients with systemic sclerosis: a resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging study
Authors' conclusion
Spontaneous activity and functional connectivity alternations can be seen in SSc patients, which are partially associated with neuropsychiatric manifestations and tend to aggravate with disease duration.
Study context
- Population
- Patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc) and age- and sex-comparable healthy volunteers undergoing resting state (RS) functional MR imaging (fMRI) and neuropsychological assessments
- Participants
- 44 vs 19
- Exposure
- SSc patients vs age and sex comparable healthy volunteers
- SScn = 44
- Healthy volunteersn = 19reference
- Outcome
- RS functional alterations: ALFF, ReHo, intra-network and inter-network FC
Methodological detailscase-control, resting-state fMRI, voxel-based pairwise two-sample t-tests
- Case-control
- Resting-state fMRI
- Voxel-based pairwise two-sample t-tests
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
RS fMRI measurements, SSc vs healthy volunteers
- SSc: significantly decreased amplitude of low frequency fluctuation (ALFF) and increased regional homogeneity (ReHo) (FWE corrected)
- all P < 0.01
- SSc: decreased intra-network functional connectivity (FC) in auditory, visual, default mode, frontoparietal and attention networks (uncorrected, cluster size > 30)
- P < 0.01
- SSc: decreased inter-network FC in auditory, visual, default mode, frontoparietal and attention networks (FDR correction)
- P < 0.05
Observational data: associations, not effects.
Further findings
Correlations of clinical characteristics with fMRI measurements
- Disease duration, r ranged
- - 0.31 to 0.36
- Elevated ESR, r
- 0.35
- Montreal Cognitive Assessment score, r
- 0.43
- Hamilton Depression Scale score, r
- −0.40
- All P < 0.05
Original publication
Brain functional alternation in patients with systemic sclerosis: a resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging study. Arthritis Res Ther. Published 8 November 2024. doi:10.
Composed by AI from the published abstract and checked against it. How Briefs are made →