Biology subjects

Perdigao, A.

Publications and source records attributed to Perdigao, A..

2 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2025

Disrupted salience network dynamics during the imagery of migraine attacks

Moderate to severe head pain is a hallmark of recurring migraine attacks. However, it is challenging to study patients during spontaneous attacks and most research on the brain mechanisms of pain in migraine patients has been limited to the processing of painful stimuli between attacks. Here, we hypothesize that the experience of a migraine attack extends beyond the response to painful stimuli and is associated with specific impairments of the salience network (SN), which integrates sensory, emotional and cognitive information in relation to salient stimuli. To test this hypothesis, we analysed the SN dynamics of a group of patients with episodic migraine in three distinct conditions: at rest during a spontaneous migraine attack (ictal phase); while performing an imagery task aiming to elicit the experience of a previous attack, during the interictal phase; and at rest, during the interictal phase. For comparison, we also studied a group of healthy controls in three matching conditions, including rest as well as an imagery task of a (non-migraine) head pain experience. We collected functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data and used a dynamic functional connectivity (dFC) analysis to examine the temporal features of the SN from a total of 78 samples. Compared to healthy controls, the SN had a significantly shorter lifetime in patients during the pain imagery task, but not during a migraine attack or interictal resting state. Our results support the disruption of the SN in migraine, and indicate that pain imagery may be a useful paradigm for isolating the emotional and cognitive aspects of pain and investigating SN dynamics.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2024

Disrupted activation of pain networks during attack imagery in patients with episodic migraine

Migraine is a prevalent and disabling brain disorder characterized by recurrent headache attacks alternating with pain-free periods. Patients with migraine exhibit altered brain activation in response to experimental nociceptive stimuli compared to healthy controls, suggesting impaired pain inhibition mechanisms. However, the relevance of these alterations to the underlying pathophysiology of migraine attacks remains unclear. To explore this relationship, we propose a novel pain imagery paradigm aimed to induce brain activation patterns associated with migraine attacks specifically during pain-free. The task required patients to alternate between imagining a severe migraine attack and being headache free, while healthy controls imagined severe physical head pain (e.g., toothache) and pain relief. We collected fMRI data from 14 episodic migraine without aura patients in the interictal phase and 15 healthy controls performing this task. Both patients and controls activated pain-related brain areas during imagery of pain relative to pain relief. Moreover, controls also activated the medial pain system associated with pain inhibition and attentional modulation of pain via top-down pathways. In contrast, patients significantly deactivated these areas, namely the anterior cingulate cortex and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Collectively, our findings indicate altered functioning of pain networks in migraine patients, suggesting a disease-related dysregulation of pain inhibition. Eventually, the proposed attack imagery paradigm may provide a promising alternative to studies of pain mechanisms in migraine research.

neuroscience↗