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Patients with fibromyalgia may have reduced hippocampal volume
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Compared with healthy participants, patients with fibromyalgia showed reduced hippocampal volume in MRI scans, according to recently published research.
The study comprised 40 women diagnosed with fibromyalgia (FM) and 22 healthy controls recruited from the area surrounding the University of Florida; participants’ mean ages were 50.17 and 43.43, respectively. Healthy individuals were excluded in the presence or history of painful neuropathies, diabetes, cancer and the use of certain drugs, including NSAIDs, antidepressants, antihistamines, analgesics and others. Patients with FM were sourced from a larger trial investigating comorbid FM and insomnia and were excluded in the presence of sleep medication in the prior 30 days.
Other exclusion criteria included bipolar or seizure disorder, sleep apnea, significant medical or neurological disorder, severe untreated psychopathic disorder or severe cognitive impairment.
All participants were administered the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and a sleep efficiency questionnaire (SE) and Pain Disability Index (PDI) were administered only to patients with FM.
MRI scans of patients with FM included 180 sagittal plane slices performed on two in-house 3 Tesla (3T) scanners, each with eight-channel head coils. Images from healthy participants were obtained with a Siemens MAGNETOM Allegra 3.0T scanner with an eight-channel head coil, which provided 128 1-mm axial plane slices.
The volume of each hippocampus was estimated by inputting data into FreeSurfer software using a Bayesian inference method based on prior anatomical probabilities in a labeled data set. Semi-partial correlation tests were conducted to control for age, total gray matter volume, signal-to-noise ratio and BDI while leaving dependent variables unadjusted.
Patients with FM had significantly smaller hippocampi in both left and right hemispheres, and larger volume differences were observed in the right hippocampus compared with the left.
Although patients with FM had significantly higher BDI scores, no significant effect of higher BDI scores was shown in relation to hippocampal volume, according to the researchers. Additionally, no relationships were observed between hippocampal volume and high PDI scores, and none were seen in relation to disease duration. – by Shirley Pulawski
Disclosures: The authors report no financial disclosures.
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