Altered Spontaneous Brain Activity in Patients with Classical Trigeminal Neuralgia Using Regional Homogeneity: A Resting-State Functional MRI Study

Objective: Neuroimaging studies have shown that patients with pain-related conditions have altered neuronal activity and structural functions. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether patients with classical trigeminal neuralgia (CTN) exhibit changes in corresponding neuronal activity via analysis of neuronal activity regional homogeneity (ReHo).

Methods: A total of 28 patients presenting with sore eyes (12 men and 16 women) were matched with 28 healthy controls (12 men and 16 women). All participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). This ReHo method was used to assess the consistency of changes in neural activity in various brain regions. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was applied to differentiate ReHo values of patients with CTN from ReHo values of healthy controls. Pearson's correlation analysis was applied to evaluate the correlation between ReHo values of different brain regions of patients with CTN and clinical manifestations.

Results: Compared with healthy controls, patients with CTN were found to have increased ReHo values in the inferior cerebellum bilaterally, right inferior temporal gyrus, right middle occipital gyrus, right fusiform gyrus, right superior frontal gyrus, and right precentral gyrus. ROC curve analysis of each brain region revealed near-perfect accuracy regarding the area under the curve. However, no correlation between ReHo values and clinical manifestations in patients with CTN was found.

Conclusions: CTN is associated with altered neuronal networks in different areas of the brain. ReHo values all possess different degrees of change, implying that CTN has a certain impact on cerebral function.