Imaging Brain Mechanisms of Functional Somatic Syndromes: Potential as a Biomarker?

Imaging Brain Mechanisms of Functional Somatic Syndromes: Potential as a Biomarker? Tohoku J Exp Med. 2020;250(3):137-152 Authors: Kano M, Oudenhove LV, Dupont P, Wager TD, Fukudo S Abstract When patients present with persistent bodily complaints that cannot be explained by a symptom-linked organic pathology (medically unexplained symptoms), they are diagnosed with 'functional' somatic syndromes (FSS). Despite their prevalence, the management of FSS is notoriously challenging in clinical practice. This may be because FSS are heterogeneous disorders in terms of etiopathogenesis. They include patients with primarily peripheral dysfunction, primarily centrally driven somatic symptoms, and a mix of both. Brain-imaging studies, particularly data-driven pattern recognition methods using machine learning algorithms, could provide brain-based biomarkers for these clinical conditions. In this review, we provide an overview of our brain imaging data on brain-body interactions in one of the most well-known FSS, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and discuss the possible development of a brain-based biomarker for FSS. Anticipation of unpredictable pain, which commonly elicits fear in FSS patients, induced increased activity in brain areas associated with hypervigilance during rectal distention and non-distention conditions in IBS. This was coupled with dysfunctional inhibitory influence of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and pregenual anterior ...
Source: The Tohoku Journal of Experimental Medicine - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Tohoku J Exp Med Source Type: research