Regional homogeneity abnormalities affected by depressive symptoms in migraine patients without aura: a resting state study

Abstract

Background: Bidirectional relationship between migraine and depression suggests that there might be some etiological risk factors shared. However, few studies investigated resting state abnormalities affected by depressive symptoms in migraine patients without aura (MWoA).

Materials and methods: According to their self-rating depression scale (SDS) score, MWoA were divided into twenty in the SDS (+) (SDS > 49) group and 20 in the SDS (-) (SDS ≤ 49) group. Regional homogeneity (ReHo) method were employed to assess local features of spontaneous brain activity between 1) all MWoA and healthy controls, 2) each subgroup and healthy controls, and 3) SDS (-) group and SDS (+) group.

Results: Compared with healthy controls, decreased ReHo in similar regions were shown in the MWoA group and subgroups. It is noteworthy that the caudate showed increased ReHo in the SDS (-) group compared with healthy controls and the SDS (+) group. Moreover, the average ReHo values of the caudate in SDS (-) group were significantly positively correlated with duration of migraine.

Conclusions: Our results suggested that ReHo patterns in migraine patients may be affected by depressive symptoms and serve as a biomarker to reflect depression severity in MWoA.

Figure 1. Regional homogeneity (ReHo) results within the migraine patients without aura (MWoA) and healthy controls.

(a) MwoA ReHo map, (b) healthy controls ReHo map (p <0.05, FWE corrected).

Figure 2. Abnormal regional homogeneity (ReHo) changes between groups.

Compared with healthy controls, decreased ReHo in the insula, the rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC), the supplementary motor area (SMA) and the cuneus were shown similarly in the whole migraine patients without aura (MWoA) group (Figure 2.a), SDS (+) group (Figure 2.b) and SDS (−) group (Figure 2.c) (p < 0.05, FWE corrected), which was indicate by a cool color. It is noteworthy that the caudate showed increased ReHo in the SDS (−) group compared with healthy controls (at the bottom of Figure 2.c shown in a warm color), and compared with the SDS (+) group (at the bottom of Figure 2.d in a cool color) (p < 0.05, FWE corrected). As indicated by the straight lines with the arrow, the average ReHo values of the caudate in Figure 2.c was significantly positively correlated with duration of migraine in the SDS (−) group separately. (SDS (+) group: migraine patients without aura with high depressive symptoms, self-rating depression scale (SDS) scores > 49; SDS (−) group: migraine patients without aura with low depressive symptoms, SDS scores ≤ 49.)