Abstract:Objective: To investigate the abnormality of degree centrality of brain network in patients with early migraine compared with healthy subjects using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Methods: A total of 44 patients with early migraine and 45 healthy controls were included, and the resting-state fMRI scanning for each subject was performed. The MRI data were pre-processed using DPARSFA software. The degree centrality (DC) based on graph theory analysis was calculated for both patients with early migraine and healthy controls. The comparison was performed by independent-sample t-test, and the spearman correlation analysis was used to evaluate the correlation between DC value of significant brain areas and the mini-mental state examination (MMSE), Hamilton anxiety scale (HAMA) and Hamilton depression scale (HAMD) scores. Results: For the patients with early migraine, the DC values in the thalamus, the superior temporal gyrus, the medial frontal gyrus, the frontal lobe, the limbic lobe, the posterior central gyrus, the anterior central gyrus and the paracentral lobule were significantly different compared to the healthy subjects (P<0.05, the Cluster>20, TFCE, permutation times>5 000), but there was no correlation between the DC values and clinical scores (P>0.05). Conclusion: The changes of DC values in patients with early migraine are mainly located in the area of pain recognition and processing, which provides a new discovery for further exploring the pathological and neurophysiological mechanisms of migraine.
